Reem Bassiouney
Reem Bassiouney was born in 1973 in Alexandria, where she studied English and linguistics before completing a PhD in Arabic Sociolinguistics at Oxford University. She has lectured at the Universities of Cambridge, Georgetown, Oxford, and Utah and has held the Chair of Applied Linguistics at the American University in Cairo since 2013. Bassiouney is an author of prose and academic studies.
Her literary focus is on historical novels about the history of Egypt, in which female characters often play a leading role. A novel by Bassiouney was translated into English for the first time in 2009. »The Pistachio Seller« is told from the perspective of a young, conservative woman who falls in love with her liberal cousin. The novel »offers an intimate look at Egypt in the 1980s and the changes that a dynamic decade brought to the country’s life and culture«, according to the American Library Association’s booklist.
In »Al-Qata’i: Ibn Tulun’s City Without Walls« (2023), Bassiouney tells the story of Egyptian leader Ahmad Ibn Tulun, who wanted to build what is now Cairo into a thriving multicultural empire, and places themes of diversity and equality in a historical context. »Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy« is set in Egypt during the Fatimid dynasty and tells of major historical events as well as people’s everyday lives.
The author received the Sawiris Cultural Award in 2010 for the novel »Professor Hanaa«. »Sons of the People. The Mamluk Trilogy« was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Award in the Best Egyptian Novel category in 2020 and was nominated for the Dublin Literary Award.
In 2023, Bassiouney was nominated for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award with »Al-Qata’i: Ibn Tulun’s City Without Walls« and was awarded the prize the following year for »Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy«. She won the excellence award for literature from the Supreme council of culture in Egypt for all her novels in 2022. Her novels have been translated into English, Greek, and Spanish.
The author lives in Cairo.
As of May 2024
The Pistachio Seller
Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, 2009
[Ü: Osman Nusairi]
Professor Hanaa
Garnet Publishing
Reading, 2011
[Ü: Laila Helmi]
Mortal Designs
AUC Press
Kairo, 2016
[Ü: Melanie Magidow]
Sons of the People. The Mamluk Trilogy
Syracuse University Press
Syracuse, 2022
[Ü: Roger Allen]
Al-Qata’i: Ibn Tulun’s City Without Walls
Georgetown University Press
Georgetown, 2023
[Ü: Roger Allen]
Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy
DarArab
UK, 2024
[Ü: Roger Allen]