Born with cerebral palsy, 18-year-old Nujeen Mustafa has spent her life in a wheelchair. She had little formal education in Syria but taught herself English by watching US soap operas. In 2014 her home town of Kobane was at the centre of fierce fighting between Isis militants and US-backed Kurdish forces, forcing her family to flee first across the border into Turkey and then further into Europe, where they currently live, in Germany.

Christina Lamb is one of Britain’s leading foreign correspondents and a bestselling author. She has won 14 major awards including five times being named Foreign Correspondent of the Year and Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux. She is the author of numerous books including ‘Farewell Kabul’, ‘The Africa House’, ‘Waiting For Allah’, ‘The Sewing Circles of Herat’ and ‘House of Stone’. She co-wrote the international bestselling ‘I am Malala’ with Malala Yousafzai and ‘Girl from Aleppo’ with Nujeen Mustafa. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford and was awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2013.