In her debut novel, Out of It, British-Palestinian writer Selma Dabbagh explores the conflict in Palestine from a compelling intimate angle–the struggle between the personal and the political. Through her characters, she focuses on what it means for individuals to constantly weigh up the competing demands of the Palestinian cause and society, on the one hand, and their own individual wishes and desires on the other. She said in an interview “I wanted to present a state of war, a state of being, a state of pressure, of siege.” Malihe Razazan speaks with Selma about how her background shaped who she is today and how it influenced her writing.