Early Life
Atlas was born to a father of Moroccan, Egyptian, and Palestinian ancestry who was born in Jerusalem and a British mother who had converted to Islam. Her paternal grandfather was born in Egypt, but grew up in Palestine, immigrating to Europe at age 15. She concedes to being "maybe 10 percent Jewish or something." Atlas says the claim that her father is purely Jewish and not Arab is "one of those things where someone had a grudge against me and wanted to hurt me. My great-great-grandfather was Jewish. But Jews have always been part of Arab society, so it’s not so unusual for someone to find out that they have Jewish blood. At the end of the day, we really are so connected."
Atlas grew up in Laken, a neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium with a large Moroccan population. After her parents separated, Atlas went to live in Northampton, England with her mother. Atlas learned several languages, including Arabic, French, English, and Spanish, and has used them all in the course of her career.
Read more about this topic: Natacha Atlas
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)
“Women generally should be taught that the rough life men must needs lead, in order to be healthy, useful and manly men, would preclude the possibility of a great degree of physical perfection, especially in color. It is not a bad reflection to know that in all probability the human animal has endowments enough without aspiring to be the beauty of all creation as well as the ruler.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)