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
Haytham El-Wardany was born in Cairo in 1972. After publishing a short story collection with five other authors in 1995, his short story collection »The Unfinished Literature Club«, which won the Egyptian Sawiris Cultural Award, was published in 2003. »Waking Dream« earned him the Cairo International Book Fair Prize in
Yasmine El Rashidi lives and works in Cairo. She regularly contributes to the New York Review of Books, and is an editor of Bidoun Magazine for contemporary Middle East art and culture. The Battle for Egypt, an anthology of her texts about the Egyptian revolution, was published in 2011.
Rehab Bassam was born in Cairo in 1977. She studied English at the Ain Shams University in Cairo. In 2004 she began blogging, mainly in English, and then in Arabic ( hadouta.blogspot.com). She reached a wide audience with the publication of a selection of her blog entries in book for,
born in 1984, lives as a filmmaker and essayist in Cairo. He writes for »The Guardian«, »The London Review of Books«, and »Mada Masr«, an Egyptian independent online newspaper, and is co-founder of the Palestine Festival of Literature as well as the non-profit media collective Mosireen in Cairo. His début
Notaila Ibrahim Rashed , known as Mama Lobna, was born in 1934 in Cairo, Egypt, and is known as the pioneer of Egyptian children’s literature. She has not only written numerous children’s books and books for young adults, short stories and contributions for diverse children’s magazines, radio and television shows
Nora Amin was born in Cairo in 1970. Following her studies in French and comparative literature, she worked for nine years as an assistant at the Cairo Academy of the Arts. During this period she earned a reputation as a writer, dancer and director. She founded the performance group »La
Nabil Naoum was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1944. He studied Engineering in Cairo and then went to the United States, where he worked as an engineer in New York for ten years. During this time he wrote his first short stories, some of which were published in Egyptian literary
born in 1967 in Port Said, Egypt, Eltahawy studied journalism in Cairo and reported from Egypt and other parts of the Middle East for Reuters news agency, »The Guardian« and other publications before moving to the United States in 2000. She returned to Cairo in 2013. Most of her work
Miral al-Tahawi was born in 1968 in Gazirat Sa’du, Egypt. Her parents are members of a Bedouin tribe and belong to the society’s elite. Al-Tahawi studied Arabic Language and Literature and worked as a teachers’ representative at the University of Cairo. She was involved with an Islamist Brotherhood, from which
Mekkawi Said was born in Cairo in 1955 and studied accounting at Cairo University. He is a scriptwriter and author, and runs the publishing house »ad-Dar« in Cairo, which has made a reputation based on a small, select fiction programme brought out in fine editions. He has won literary prizes,
