May Menassa

was born in Beirut in 1939 and holds a postgraduate diploma in French Literature. 

She has published four novels, as well as a children’s book and many translations, mainly from French. [Walking in the Dust], which tells the powerful story of dealing with tragedy and loss in war from a very young age, was short-listed this year for the inaugural Arabic “Booker” prize. An excerpt of the novel has been published in Banipal 32.

May Menassa began her journalistic career in television in 1959, and has worked as a critic for the Lebanese daily newspaper An Nahar since 1969.