Contributors
A-Z of Banipal's contributors (by family name) - authors, tranlators, reviewers, essayists, interviewers, reporters and cover artists, with details as up to date as possible at the time of publication. For more information on any contributor, please contact info@banipal.co.uk.
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Mohammad al-Abbas is a Saudi Arabian writer and literary critic. He has published four books of essays on prose poetry and modernism in literature. [read more] [top]
Luay Hamza Abbas was born in 1965 in Basra, Iraq. He has a PhD from Basra University (2002), where he teaches literary criticism. [read more] [top]
Yasser Abd el-Hafez was born in Cairo in 1969. He graduated in Law from Ain Shams University. [read more] [top]
Ibtisam Abdallah is an Iraqi novelist, short-story writer and literary translator. [read more] [top]
Yasir Abdel Baqi writes novels, short stories and screenplays. He is the editorial director for Al-Manara magazine. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Abdel Ghani was born in 1967 in Khraibka, Morocco. He is studying for a PhD in autobiography in early Arabic literature. In 1999 he published his first collection of poems. [read more] [top]
Ahmed Abdel Hussain was born in Baghdad in 1966. He published his first writing in 1982. [read more] [top]
Salah Abdel Latif was born in Baghdad in 1950. He has published two collections of short stories (1984 and 1993). In 2000 he published a novel, Nujoum Adamiyya [Human Stars] in Tangiers. [read more] [top]
Yasser Abdel Latif was born in Cairo in1969. He graduated from Cairo University in Philosophy in 1994. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Abdel Meguid was born in Alexandria in 1946. He is one of Egypt’s most respected and well-known of authors. [read more] [top]
Mahmood Abdel Wahab was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1929. While still at school he wrote a play The Miserable. [read more] [top]
Marie-Therese Abdel-Messih is Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the University of Cairo. [read more] [top]
Ashraf Abdelshafy was born on 29 July 1969 in El-Minya, Egypt. He has a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Cairo University [read more] [top]
Noel Abdulahad - 1939–2007 was born in Bethlehem, and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. He was a poet, critic and translator from Arabic, and particularly enjoyed translating poetry. [read more] [top]
Samir Abdulfattah has authored three collections of short stories, two novels and may plays for the theatre. [read more] [top]
Luay Abdulilah was born in Baghdad in 1949. He graduated in Mathematics from Baghdad University. A regular contributor of literary criticism and short stories to several Arabic magazines and newspapers. [read more] [top]
Yahya Taher Abdullah was born in Karnak, Egypt in 1938. He has published four novellas, including The Collar and the Bracelet which was made into a major Egyptian film. [read more] [top]
Najat Abdullah was born in the province of Misan in Iraq. She has worked on a number of magazines and newspapers as a cultural journalist. [read more] [top]
Hassan Abdulrazzak Hassan Abdulrazzak is an Iraqi playwright and novelist, best known for his highly successful play Baghdad Wedding. [read more] [top]
Kareem Abed a poet and short story writer, was born in Iraq in 1952. After leaving Iraq in 1979, he lived in Beirut and Damascus. [read more] [top]
Elmaz Abinader Fady Joudah’s collection The Earth in the Attic received the Yale Series for Younger Poets in 2007. His translations of Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly’s Burden won the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation in 2008. [read more] [top]
Huda (Hoda) Ablan was born in 1971 in Ib, Yemen. In 1993 she obtained a Masters degree in Political Science from Sana’a University. [read more] [top]
Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer currently living in Abu Dhabi. She is the author of two novels, The Translator and Minaret and a collection of short stories, Coloured Lights. [read more] [top]
Hamdy Abowgliel was born in 1968 into a Bedouin family in Egypt. He has published two volumes of short stories, Asrab al-Naml [Swarms of Bees] in 1997, and Ashya’ Matwiyya bi-‘Anaya Fa’iqa [Items Folded with Great Care] in 2000, for which he has received three literary awards, and one non-fiction work. [read more] [top]
Nazih Abu Afach was born in Syria in 1946 in Homs. He is a poet and painter and has published 13 collections of poetry, the first in 1968 and the latest [The Bible of the Blind] in 2003. [read more] [top]
Nabil Abu Hamad is an painter, political cartoonist and caricaturist, with a weekly cartoon in Al-Hayat newspaper. He was born in the small Palestinian village of Kafr Yasif of a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother. [read more] [top]
Jamal Abu Hamdan was born in 1944 in Jabal Al-Arab, Syria, while the family was moving from Lebanon to Jordan. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Abu Hashhash was born in the al-Fawar refugee camp, Hebron, in 1971. He has a degree in English language and literature from Birzeit University. [read more] [top]
Samer Abu Hawwash was born in Beirut in 1972 to a family of Palestinian refugees. Since 1991 he has published poetry and articles in various Lebanese newspapers and magazines. [read more] [top]
Fawziyya Abu Khalid was born in Riyadh in 1959. She has BAs from universities in Lebanon and the USA, and an MA from King Saud University, where she lectures in Sociology. She has published three books of poetry. [read more] [top]
Yusuf Abu Rayya was born in Hihya in the Nile Delta. He published six short story collections, five novels, and seven books for children. [read more] [top]
Emad Abu Saleh was born in a village in the Egyptian Delta in December 1967. He has lived and worked in Cairo since 1990, presently as a journalist on Al-Wafd. [read more] [top]
Rashad Abu Shawar was born in 1942 in Thikreen in Palestine. He is a novelist, short story writer and journalist. Since 1970 he has published seven collections of short stories, six novels, four books of essays, two children’s books and one play. [read more] [top]
Zuhayr Abu Shayeb was born in Amman. He has published two collections of poetry in 1986 and 1987. [read more] [top]
Zuleikha Abu-Risha has published her poetry in several literary magazines and has three collections, the first 1998. She studied at Exeter University, UK. [read more] [top]
Amira Abul Husn was born in Qamishli, Syria, in 1959. She studied business for two years befpre eaving college to devote heself to her poetry. [read more] [top]
Fathi Abul Nasr is the author of two books - one poetry anthology and one collection of poems with narrative texts. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Achaari is a Moroccan poet and was born in 1951 in Moulay Driss Zerhoun. He graduated in law in 1975 from Mohammed V University, Rabat. He started his literary life with a short story, “Waiting for the Death of the Father” in 1967. [read more] [top]
Majid Addam was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1972, and graduated from the Baghdad Institute of Technology in 1993. [read more] [top]
Etel Adnan is a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and painter. She studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the universities of Berkeley and Harvard, and taught Philosophy in San Rafael, California. [read more] [top]
Taha Adnan was born 2 August 1970 in Assfi, Morocco. He grew up in Marrakesh and since 1996 lives in Brussels, working in the Ministry for Francophone Education. [read more] [top]
Adonis was born Ali Ahmad Said in Kassabeen, Syria, in 1930, and adopted the name Adonis when he was 17. He co-founded Sh’ir poetry magazine and later formed Muwaqaf. [read more] [top]
Mamdouh Adwan was born in Hama in Syria. He was a prolific writer, poet, playwright and critic, publishing his first collection of poetry, al-Dhul al-Akhdhar [The Green Shadow] in 1967 and since then 17 further collections. [read more] [top]
Mofleh al-Adwan is a short story writer, born in Jordan in 1966. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Jordan University. [read more] [top]
Wajdi al-Ahdal is a Yemeni novelist, short story writer and playwright. Some of his works have been banned in Yemen and was forced to leave the country at one point. He has won numerous Yemeni literary prizes for his work. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Ahmad was born in Iraq in 1946. He graduated in Law from Baghdad University. He is a well-known short story writer and has published eight collections, the first [20 Very Short Stories] in Baghdad in 1976. [read more] [top]
Younis al-Akhzami is a short story writer from Oman. He has published two collections, An-’atheer (1992) and Habs an-'Nawras (1996). [read more] [top]
Ahmed Alaidy was born in 1974, studied marketing at Cairo University, and has worked as a scriptwriter on quiz shows and for the cinema, and as a writer of satirical stories for young people and a book designer. [read more] [top]
Khalid Albudoor Khalid Albudoor is at the forefront of the modernist poetry movement in Dubai [read more] [top]
Khalid Albudoor Khalid Albudoor is at the forefront of the modernist poetry movement in Dubai, where he was born. [read more] [top]
Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, translator, critic and scholar. He teaches at Queens College, New York, and is former chair of Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures. [read more] [top]
Muniam Alfaker was born in Iraq in 1953. He left in 1979 and lived in Beirut and Damascus before settling in Copenhagen. [read more] [top]
Ghazi Algosaibi is a Saudi poet, essayist and critic, and government minister, well known in the Arab world in the worlds of academia, politics and diplomacy. [read more] [top]
Taha Muhammad Ali is a native of Saffuriyah, near Nazareth. He was 17 when the Saffuriyans were forced out of their village by the Jewish army in July 1948. [read more] [top]
Nagat Ali was born in Cairo. She graduated from Ain Shams University in literature and is currently preparing an MA on irony in the short stories of Yusuf Idris. [read more] [top]
Fatma Yousif al-Ali was born in 1953 in Kuwait. She is a journalist and short story writer. She has a BA in Arabic Literature from Cairo University and an MA in literary criticism on “the movement of society in the Kuwaiti short story”. [read more] [top]
Marwan Ali was born in 1968 in Qamishle, Syria. He started publishing poetry in 1999 in Arab quarterlies and newspapers. [read more] [top]
Nadia Alkawkabani was born in Taiz, Yemen. She has published five collections and stories and three novels, selections of which have been translated into English, French and German. [read more] [top]
Roger Allen is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. [read more] [top]
Taleb Alrefai was born in 1958 in Kuwait. He works for Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts, & Letters, and edits Jaridat Al-Fonoon, a monthly arts tabloid. [read more] [top]
Salih J Altoma was born in Iraq. He is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, USA, and has been associated with the university since 1964. [read more] [top]
Mohammad Hassan Alwan was born in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia in 1979. He has two novels (see Banipal 26 for a review of Sophia) and a collection of short stories. [read more] [top]
Jaber Alwan was born in Babylon, Iraq, in 1948 in 1970 from the Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad. [read more] [top]
Suzanne Alwayan was born in 1974 in Beirut. She has a degree in journalism and media studies from the American University in Cairo. She lives in Beirut. [read more] [top]
Nora Amin was born in Cairo, where she lives and works. She studied Cinema before turning to writing and has published a short story collection and a novel. [read more] [top]
Piers Amodia translates from Arabic and Italian into English. He spent eight years in the merchant navy before going to Edinburgh University to study Arabic. [read more] [top]
Ziad al-Anany was born in Naour, Jordan, in 1962. Since 1988 he has published four collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Sinan Antoon is a poet, novelist, translator and filmmaker. He was born in Baghdad in 1967 and moved to the USA after the 1991 Gulf War. [read more] [top]
Thomas Aplin was born in England in 1979. He has a first class degree in BA Arabic from the University of Exeter and an MSc in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies from Edinburgh, where he is currently pursuing a PhD on the Gulf novel. [read more] [top]
Tarek el-Ariss teaches contemporary Middle Eastern culture and literature, media, film, and Arabic and European intellectual history at New York University. [read more] [top]
Mustapha Arrar Known as Arrar, Mustapha Wahbi al-Tal (1899-1949) is considered one of the most popular poets in Jordan. [read more] [top]
Gaber Asfour has been a professor at several Arab, European and American universities, and is a former President of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Culture. [read more] [top]
Yusef Habshi al-Ashqar (1922-1992) was born in Bayt Shabab, Lebanon. Author of several novels and collections of short stories, he is considered by many as one of the greatest of modern Arab writers. [read more] [top]
Waiel Ashry is an Egyptian writer and translator who currently resides in New York City where he studies Arabic literature at NYU. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Aslan was born in Cairo in 1936. He is a leading Egyptian novelist and short story writer. [read more] [top]
Zeinab Assaf is a young poet from Lebanon. She works as a literary critic and book reviewer for An-Nahar daily newspaper, and is editor-in-chief of the newly-established magazine Naqd (Critic). [read more] [top]
Zena Assi was born in 1974 in Lebanon. She graduated with honours from L’Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts (ALBA) with a D.E.S. in publicity. [read more] [top]
Alaa Al-Aswany was born in 1957 and educated at the Lycée Français in Cairo, Cairo University, and the University of Illinois, Chicago. [read more] [top]
Seema Atalla was born in New York, completed high school in Amman, Jordan, and now lives in Southern California. [read more] [top]
Fahad al-Ateeq was born in Riyadh. He is a fiction writer and since 1985 has published 5 short story collections and one novel. [read more] [top]
Majed Atef was born in Ramallah, Palestine, in 1972. He has three collections of short stories. [read more] [top]
Akl Awit is a poet, critic, journalist and university professor, born in Lebanon in 1952. [read more] [top]
Mohamed Salah Al-Azab was born in Cairo on 19 September 1981. His first novel A Long Cellar with a Low Ceiling making you Crouch was published by Suad Al-Sabah Publishers, Kuwait, 2003 (second edition, Cairo 2006). [read more] [top]
Ali Azeriah was born in Morocco. He holds an MA in Translation and Linguistics from the University of Bath, UK, and a PhD in comparative literature and translation studies from SUNY-Binghamton, NY (USA). [read more] [top]
Aziz Azrhai was born in Casablanca in 1965. He worked as a journalist in the nineties, is a member of the House of Poetry in Morocco and has published two collections of poetry and biography of Moroccan author Idris el-Khoury. [read more] [top]
Samira Azzam She was a pioneering Palestinian writer, publishing five novels and numerous short stories in her short life. [read more] [top]
Fadhil al-Azzawi was born in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, in 1940. He has a BA in English Literature from Baghdad University and a PhD in Journalism from Leipzig University. [read more] [top]
Saleh al-Azzaz worked for many years as a journalist in Riyadh where he lived, then became a television documentary filmmaker and well-known photographer. [read more] [top]
Ali Bader was born in Baghdad in 1964. He has a degree from Baghdad University in Western Philosophy and French Literature. [read more] [top]
Hesham Bahari is the author of two novels in the Swedish language, and the publisher of Alhambra Förlag in Sweden. [read more] [top]
Basheer al-Baker was born in Al-Hassaka, Syria, in 1956. He has been publishing his poetry in several Arab literary magazines. [read more] [top]
Salwa Bakr was born in Cairo in 1949. In the early1980 she was a film and theatre critic for Arabic-language newspapers and magazines and from 1985 concentrated on her own writings. [read more] [top]
Aida Bamia is a former Professor in the African and Asian Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Florida, USA. [read more] [top]
Latifa Baqa was born in Sale, Morocco. She has one collection of short stories Ma allathi nafalahu? [What Do We Do?], published by the Moroccan Union of Writers when she won their Award for Best Young Writer of 1992. [read more] [top]
Salim Barakat is of Kurdish origin, born in 1951 in Qamishli, Syria, where he was brought up and spent most of his adult life. [read more] [top]
Hoda Barakat is a highly regarded and acclaimed novelist. She was born in 1952 and brought up in Bsharré, Lebanon, the birthplace of Gibran Kahlil Gibran. [read more] [top]
Ahmed Barakat was born in Casablanca. In 1977 he started publishing his poetry in Moroccan and other Arab newspapers. He published two collections of poems before his untimely death in 1994. [read more] [top]
Halim Barakat was born in 1933 into a Greek-Orthodox Arab family in Kafroun, Syria. [read more] [top]
Mourid Barghouti is a prominent and celebrated Palestinian poet and has spent most of his life in exile. [read more] [top]
Raouf Mousaad Basta was born in 1937 in Sudan. He studied journalism in Cairo and joined a left-wing organisation. [read more] [top]
Issa Batarseh is a poet of Jordanian origin who lives in California. He has published two collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Abdel Wahab al-Bayati was a pioneering Iraqi poet, who together with Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Nazik al-Malaika broke the boundaries of poetic form to establish Arabic free verse. [read more] [top]
Said el-Baz is a Moroccan poet and translator who lives in Agadir. He is one of the new important voices in Morocco. He has many collections still in manuscript, unpublished including one entitled Agadir by Night. [read more] [top]
Chawki Bazih was born in 1951 in southern Lebanon. He studied Arabic language and literature at the Lebanese University, Beirut, and from 1973 to 1989 worked as a teacher. [read more] [top]
Youssef Bazzi is a young poet and journalist, well-known in Beirut. He has four poetry collections, and has been awarded the Yousef al-Khal Poetry Prize. In 2005. [read more] [top]
Taher Bekri is a Tunisian poet and writer born in 1951. He writes in both French and Arabic and his poetry has been translated into several languages. [read more] [top]
Mohammed al-Belushi is an Omani short story writer who was born in Qurayyat, Oman, in 1970. [read more] [top]
Tahar Ben Jelloun Together with Naguib Mahfouz Tahar Ben Jelloun is probably the most translated Arab writer, the most read and studied in the world. [read more] [top]
Hassan Ben Othman was born in 1959 in Sqalba, Tunisia. He is a novelist, short story writer, and editor-in-chief of Al-Hayat Al-Thaqafa [Cultural Life] magazine in Tunisia. [read more] [top]
Abdelkader Benali (b. Ighazzazen, Morocco, 1975) moved to the Netherlands when he was four. After living in Rotterdam and Leiden, he moved to Amsterdam where he lives now. [read more] [top]
Widad Benmoussa was born in Ksar el-Kebir Morocco, en 1969. Her first poetry collection, was published in Rabat in 2001, establishing her as a poet to watch. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Bentalha was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1950. From 1979 to 1981 he was general secretary of the Union of Writers. [read more] [top]
Abbas Beydoun was born in Tyre, Lebanon in 1945. He graduated in Arabic Literature from the Lebanese University, Beirut. [read more] [top]
Hussein Bin Hamza was born in Al-Hassaka, Syria, in 1963. Since 1995 he has lived and worked in Beirut. [read more] [top]
Mohamed el-Bisatie was born and brought up in the Nile Delta and lives in Cairo. Since 1968 he has published six volumes of short stories and a number of novels, many published in English translation. [read more] [top]
Haifa Bitar is a Syrian author and ophthalmologist, living in Lattakia, Syria. She has published 11 collections of short stories and 9 novels. [read more] [top]
Allison Blecker has an MA from Harvard in Middle Eastern Studies and is starting a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations there in late 2010. [read more] [top]
Marilyn Booth is a well-known translator of contemporary Arabic fiction, and director of the Centre for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and associate professor in the Programs in Comparative and World Literature and Gender and Women’s Studies, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. [read more] [top]
Faraj Bou al-Isha was born in Libya in 1956. He worked as a primary school teacher, later a journalist and writer. He published his first collection of poetry in 1987, then two in Cyprus (1992 and 1993). [read more] [top]
Kader Boubekri is a poet born in Algeria in 1943. He has published his poetry in several Arab magazines. He lives in Paris. [read more] [top]
Rachid Boujedra was born in 1941 in Ain-Beide, Algeria. He spent his early childhood there before moving to Tunisia. [read more] [top]
Issa J Boullata is a writer, literary scholar and critic, an educator and translator, who was born in Jerusalem. [read more] [top]
Sargon Boulus (1944–2007) A celebration of the life and work of Sargon Boulus took place in London on 25 October 2008, just over one year after he died in Berlin, with many tributes and readings in Arabic and English by his friends and his nephew. [read more] [top]
Ahmed Bouzfour was born in 1945 in Taza, Morocco. He studied Arabic Literature and lectures at the College of Literature and Humanities in Casablanca, where he lives. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud al-Braikan was a highly regarded poet, and was born in al-Zubair, southern Iraq. [read more] [top]
Rima Buaini was born in Syria in 1971. She has a BA in English (Damascus University) and later studied theatre criticism at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts. [read more] [top]
Anthony Calderbank studied Arabic and Persian at Manchester University and taught Arabic in Cairo and at Salford University, UK. [read more] [top]
Paul Chaoul born in Beirut in 1942, is a poet, playwright, literary critic and foremost translator of French poetry and plays. [read more] [top]
Hayan Charara Hayan Charara was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1972, to Lebanese immigrants, and is the author of two poetry books, The Alchemist's Diary (Hanging Loose, 2001), named a "Notable Debut" by Publishers Weekly, and The Sadness of Others (Carnegie Mellon, 2006), which was nominated for the National Book Award. [read more] [top]
Rachida al-Charni is a Tunisian short story writer and has published her stories in newspapers, magazines and in two collections. [read more] [top]
Amal Chatterjee (Colombo, 1965) writes fiction and history. Now based in Amsterdam, he is working on his second novel while teaching fiction at the University of Oxford and reviewing fiction for the Dutch newspaper Trouw. [read more] [top]
Aziz Chouaki was born in Algiers in 1951. His mother bought him a guitar at the age of ten and he learned to play the Beatles, the Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. [read more] [top]
Mohamed Choukri one of Morocco’s great contemporary writers, died November 2003 of cancer. He was 64 years old. [read more] [top]
Peter Clark lived in the Middle East for many years working for the British Council. [read more] [top]
Elliott Colla is associate professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, and a translator of several works of contemporary Arabic literature. [read more] [top]
David Colmer is an Australian author and translator who lives in Amsterdam. He translates Dutch literature in a wide range of genres. In 2010 he was named co-winner of the IMPAC Award for his translation of Gerbrand Bakker's novel The Twin [read more] [top]
Alfred Corn is the author of nine books of poetry, a book of essays and a novel. He has numerous fellowships for his poetry. He has taught at Yale, Columbia and UCLA. [read more] [top]
Albert Cossery lived in Paris for over 60 years. He has published seven novels in French and was winner of the Francophone Prize for Literature. [read more] [top]
Rachid al-Daif is a Lebanese novelist and poet who lives between Beirut where he teaches Arabic at the Lebanese University and his family home in a mountain village. [read more] [top]
Hassan Daoud is a novelist and journalist born in Beirut in 1950, where he lives and works. [read more] [top]
Faisal Darraj is a Palestinian literary critic who has lived between Damascus and Amman. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) the great Palestinian poet, passed away on Saturday 9 August 2008, following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas. [read more] [top]
Humphrey Davies studied Arabic at Cambridge (1965-8), where he took a 1st, and at the American University in Cairo's Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (1968-69). [read more] [top]
Georgia de Chamberet writes for print and online publications with a cross-cultural focus and is a committee member of English PEN's Writers in Translation programme. She founded the literary agency BookBlast Ltd in 1997. [read more] [top]
Lukman Derky was born in Derbassiya, Syria, in 1966. He was a member of Aleppo University’s literary circle in the 1980s. [read more] [top]
Muhi al-din Lazikani was born in Syria in 1951 and studied literature in Syria and Egypt. [read more] [top]
Osama Dinassouri 1960 – 4 January 2007
was born in 1960 in a small village in Kafr el Shaikh, Egypt. He moved to Alexandria where he obtained his BA in marine biology. [read more] [top]
Ali al-Domaini was born in 1948 in Saudi Arabia, and is a poet, novelist and activist for human rights. [read more] [top]
Lutfiya al-Dulaimi was born in Diyala, Iraq. She has published ten books of fiction, five plays and three books of essays. [read more] [top]
Laila Elhan has published three collections of poetry and in 2008 was awarded the President's Prize for young poets. [read more] [top]
Tarek Eltayeb was born in Cairo of Sudanese parents. He studied in Ain Shams University, Cairo, until 1981. [read more] [top]
Safaa Ennagar was born on 15 May 1973. She has a BA in Communication – Radio and Television, Cairo University, and is studying for an MA [read more] [top]
Mansoura Ez-Eldin was born in 1976 in a small village in Delta Egypt, and graduated in journalism from Cairo University in 1998. [read more] [top]
Ahmad al-Fagih is a Libyan author and playwright. In 1965, at the age of 22, he was awarded a prize for his first book of short stories. [read more] [top]
Hartmut Fähndrich was born in Tübingen, Germany, in 1944, and in 1972 moved to Switzerland, where he still lives. [read more] [top]
Jawdat Fakhreddine was born in 1953 in southern Lebanon. He has published seven collections of poetry, the first in 1979. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Farghali was born in September 1967 in Mansourah, Egypt and spent a good part of his childhood in Oman. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Ali Farhat is a Lebanese poet born in Beirut in 1945. He graduated from the Lebanese University and has an MA in Philosophy. [read more] [top]
Elias Farkouh was born in Amman in 1948. A novelist and short story writer, he has published six short story collections, the first in 1987, and two novels in 1987 and 1996. [read more] [top]
Ghaib Tu'ma Farman stands out among other Iraqi writers as the novelist who has contributed most to the advancement of the Iraqi novel during the 20th century in two respects: its artistic development or refinement and the authentic representation of Iraq’s socio-political life between the 1940s and 1970s. [read more] [top]
Abdulaziz Mohammed Majid Al-Farsi was born in Shinas in the Sultanate of Oman on August 27, 1976. [read more] [top]
Tamer Fathy is 25 years old and studying English literature at Alexandria University. [read more] [top]
Bassam K Frangieh is a professor of Arabic language and literature at Claremont McKenna College, California. [read more] [top]
Basim Furat was born in 1967 in Karbala, Iraq. He left Iraq in 1993, first to Jordan, then Wellington, New Zealand, and later Japan, and Laos. [read more] [top]
Rodaan al-Galidi was born in Iraq around 1970; his exact date of birth is unknown. [read more] [top]
Hamdy el-Gazzar was born on 1 October 1970, in Giza, Cairo. He has a degree from Cairo University in Philosophy (1996). [read more] [top]
Zahir al-Ghafri was born in 1956 in Oman. He is part of the avant-garde prose poetry movement in Oman. [read more] [top]
Duna Ghali was born in 1963 in Basra, Iraq. She graduated from the college of Agriculture, Basra University in 1987 and since 1992 has lived in Denmark. [read more] [top]
Nujoom al-Ghanem (Nujum al-Ghanim) is a poet from the United Arab Emirates. She has published seven collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Hashem Gharaibeh is a novelist and short story writer and has published a number of books. He lives and works in Amman. [read more] [top]
Anwar al-Ghassani 1937 - 2009
Teacher, poet, fiction writer, translator and journalist
[read more] [top]
Mai Ghoussoub The sudden and untimely death of Mai Ghoussoub shocked the arts and literary worlds. [read more] [top]
Ferial Ghouzoul is Iraqi, living in Cairo, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University of Cairo. [read more] [top]
Mohammed al-Ghozzi was born in Kairouan, Tunisia, in 1949. Poet, critic and professor at Tunis University, he has published three collections of poems. [read more] [top]
Giuseppe Goffredo is a poet and writer, born in Alberobello in Puglia, Italy, in 1956. He graduated in Philosophy. [read more] [top]
Camilo Gomez-Rivas is writing a doctoral thesis on Islamic law and society in the Maghreb at Yale University. He is a regular contributor to Banipal. [read more] [top]
Nabil Naum Gorgy was born in Cairo and studied Civil Engineering at Cairo University. [read more] [top]
Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 1951 he founded the Turia group of writers opposed to Franco and in 1956 he moved to Paris. [read more] [top]
William Granara is Professor of Arabic at Harvard University. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa. [read more] [top]
William Groenewegen (1971) grew up in Surrey, England. He holds an MA in English LIt. from Groningen University. His latest book of translations of Turger Kopland's work, What Water Left Behind (Dublin: Waxwing, 2006), was shortlisted for the Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. [read more] [top]
Eskander Habache was born in Beirut in 1963. He is a poet, and journalist with As-Safir newspaper. [read more] [top]
Marilyn Hacker is the award-winning author of many collections of poems, including Desesperanto, published by W.W. Norton in 2003, and First Cities: Collected Early Poems 1960-1979 (also 2003). [read more] [top]
Fawwaz Haddad was born in Damascus. He graduated in law from Damascus University, and worked at several jobs. He is now a full-time writer. [read more] [top]
Mayselun Hadi was born in 1954 in Baghdad. She graduated in Management and Economics from Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Subhi Hadidi was born in Qamishle, Syria, 1951. A critic, editorialist, and translator, he writes extensively on contemporary Arab poetry. [read more] [top]
Jad El-Hage was born in Beirut in 1946. He is a poet, novelist and playwright, and published his first creative works, poems, in newspapers in 1966. [read more] [top]
Haidar Haidar was born in 1936 in the small village of Husain-al Bahr near Tartus in Syria. [read more] [top]
Bassam Hajjar With great sadness we report that Bassam Hajja died of cancer on 17 February. Born in Sûr (Tyre), Lebanon, he became a philosopher and a poet – with a Diploma of Advanced Study in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. [read more] [top]
Jalal Hakmaoui was born in 1965 in Casablanca. He studied in Sale and now teaches Translation in Meknès. He published his first collection of poems in 1997. [read more] [top]
Laila Halaby Laila Halaby is a Lebanese born poet and novelist living in America. Her novel 'West of the Jordan' won the PEN Beyond Margins Award. [read more] [top]
Ghalib Halasa was born near Madaba in Jordan. He lived in Beirut as a teenager and went on to live in Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus, writing seven novels and a collection of short stories considered among the best of modern Arab literature. [read more] [top]
Kadhim al-Hallaq was born in Basra, Iraq, 1959. He qualified as an archivist in Baghdad, 1985. [read more] [top]
Kadhim al-Hallaq Kadhim Al-Hallaq, pen name of Kadhim Joni Mahdi, was born in Basra, Iraq. His short stories and non-fiction have been published in Arabic literary journals, and a first collection of short stories (“Shadow of Sleepiness") was published in 1997 in Damascus, Syria. [read more] [top]
Janan Jassim Hallawi was born in old Basra city in 1956. He studied electric engineering. [read more] [top]
Turki al-Hamad is a well-known Saudi author of a number of books of fiction and essays, and a former university lecturer. [read more] [top]
Salah al-Hamdani was born in Iraq where he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime. [read more] [top]
Khalida Hamid is an Iraqi researcher and bilingual translator from Baghdad. She has a BA and MA in Translation from Al-Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad. [read more] [top]
Abd El-Din Hamrouch was born in 1964 in Casablanca, Morocco. In 1991 he received his diploma from the College of Literature and Humanities in Rabat. He has one collection of poems, published in 1993. [read more] [top]
Lara Hamza Lara Hamza’s poetry can be read in the anthology "Inclined to Speak" and her non-fiction writing in Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream. [read more] [top]
Tony Hanania was born in Beirut in 1964. He was brought up in Lebanon and educated at Winchester and the Warburg Institute. [read more] [top]
Nathalie Handal is a Palestinian-American living in Boston, USA. She is a writer, poet and literary researcher and travels widely. [read more] [top]
Yasmeen Hanoosh was born in Basra in 1978 and lived in Baghdad until 1995, when she went to live in the USA. [read more] [top]
Jokha Al-Harthi is from the Sultanate of Oman. She is currently preparing her doctorate in the UK and has published several collections of short stories, a novel, Manamat [Dreams] as well as as number of articles. [read more] [top]
Ibtihaj Al-Harthi is a teacher from Sultanate of Oman. She has a Masters in TESOL and has published several translations of short stories in newspapers. [read more] [top]
Salah Hasan was born in Babel, Iraq, in 1960. He studied theatre at the Academy of Fine Art, Baghdad, leaving Iraq in 1992. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Hashem established his independent publishing house Dar Merit in Cairo in 1998, has been awarded the 2006 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award by the Association of American Publishers’ International Freedom to Publish (IFTP) Committee. [read more] [top]
Mahdi Haydar is the nom-de-plume of the author of Alaam Saddam Hussein, excerpted in translation in Banipal No 24, pages 22-31. The real identity of the author has not been revealed. [read more] [top]
Paula Haydar is Professor of Arabic at the University of Arkansas. She holds an M.F.A. degree in Literary Translation, and has translated several novels by contemporary Lebanese novelists. [read more] [top]
Buland al-Haydari was born in north Iraq on September 26, 1926, moving to Baghdad as a boy. [read more] [top]
Jalil Heidar was born in Baghdad in 1945. He has worked on newspapers in Baghdad, Damascus and Cyprus. [read more] [top]
Zeinab Hifni was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 1987 she started working as a journalist, and for five years wrote a weekly column in the daily Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. [read more] [top]
Bensalim Himmich was born in Meknès, Morocco in 1949. He has published six novels, four collections of poetry, and books of essays and literary criticism. [read more] [top]
Thomas Høegh is the founder and CEO of Arts Alliance Media (sister company of Arts Alliance Ventures). [read more] [top]
Khaled Hroub is director of the Cambridge Arab Media Project (CAMP) of the Centre of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a member of Queens’ College. [read more] [top]
Mohammed A. al-Hussaini was born in Amouda, Syria, in 1957, into a Kurdish family. [read more] [top]
Aamer Hussein is well-known author and has published four collections of short stories. [read more] [top]
Jabbar Yassin Hussein was born in 1954 in Baghdad. He left Iraq in 1976 and since then has lived in France where he began writing short stories, poems, novels and essays in an attempt to recall what he had left behind. [read more] [top]
Hadiyya Hussein was born in Baghdad. She has four collections of short stories, (pub. Baghdad 1993 & 1998, Amman 2002, and Sharjah 1999, the latter winning the Sharjah Women Writers’ Prize) and two novels (Amman 2001, 2003). [read more] [top]
William M Hutchins is the principal translator of the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. He is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. [read more] [top]
Sonallah Ibrahim was born in 1937. After studying law and drama at Cairo University, he became a journalist in Cairo until his arrest and imprisonment in 1959 as an advocate for the Left. [read more] [top]
Suhail Idriss Lebanese intellectual, writer, novelist, translator, lexicographer and publisher Suhail Idriss passed away in Beirut on Tuesday February 19, 2008. [read more] [top]
Hamid al-Iqabi was born in 1956 in al-Kut, Iraq. He left in 1982 and since 1985 has been living in Denmark. Between 1986 and 1994 he published five collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
John Irons (born 1942) studied French, German and Dutch at Cambridge University before specialising in Dutch poetry for his PhD. [read more] [top]
Abed Ismael was born in Lattakia, Syria in 1963 and is a poet and translator, teaching American literature at Damascus University. [read more] [top]
Ali Issa is from Iraq. He has an MA in Arabic studies from the University of Texas and currently lives in New York where he is a freelance Arabic instructor. [read more] [top]
Abid Jaafar was born in Baghdad in 1954. he studied Arabic literature in Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Rabee Jaber was born in 1972 in Beirut and studied physics at the American University of Beirut. [read more] [top]
Amal al-Jabouri was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1967. She has a degree in English Literature from Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Muhayman Jamil was born in Baghdad in 1956 and has lived and worked in the UK since the early 1990s. [read more] [top]
Hatif Janabi was born in Iraq in 1952. He studied Arabic Literature at Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Abdel Kader El-Janabi is a poet born in Baghdad in 1944. He settled in France after living in London and Vienna and in 1973, in Paris, he founded the first surrealist Arabic review, Le Désir Libertaire, which was banned in the Arab world. [read more] [top]
Clara Janès is from Barcelona, Spain, and is regarded as one of Spain’s best contemporary love poets. [read more] [top]
Ghassan Jawad is a poet and journalist from southern Lebanon. He lives and works in Beirut. [read more] [top]
Salma Khadra Jayyusi was born in Palestine in 1928, of a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother. [read more] [top]
Khaled al-Jbaili was born in 1954, in Aleppo, Syria. He graduated from Aleppo University in 1976 with a BA in English Language and Literature, and Diploma in Translation. [read more] [top]
Kadhim Jihad Hassan was born in southern Iraq in 1955. He has lived in Paris since 1976. [read more] [top]
Hussain Jilaad was born in Irbid in 1970. He graduated in Political Science. He has published one collection of poetry and has two novels in printing. [read more] [top]
Denys Johnson-Davies was born in 1922 in Vancouver, Canada but grew up in Sudan, Egypt and East Africa, later settling permanently in the Arab world. [read more] [top]
Pierre Joris was born in Luxembourg. He has lived in the USA, the UK, North Africa and France, and now teaches poetry and theory at New York University, Albany. [read more] [top]
Lawrence Joseph Lawrence Joseph is the author of five books of poems. Originally from Detroit, he has lived in New York City since 1981. [read more] [top]
Fady Joudah is a Palestinian American poet, a practising physician and poetry translator. [read more] [top]
Laila al-Juhni was born in 1969 in Tubuq, Saudi Arabia. She has a BA in English Literature from King Abdul Aziz University in Medina, an MA in Foreign Languages, and is working for an PhD in education at the University of Tiba in Medina. [read more] [top]
Assef al-Jundi was born in Syria but lives in Texas. His poetry has appeared in various literary publications and Anthologies including Inclined to Speak 2008. [read more] [top]
Ghalia Kabbani is a Syrian writer. She spent her childhood in Kuwait, leaving after the invasion in 1990. She has worked as a journalist since 1979. [read more] [top]
Inaam Kachachi was born in Baghdad in 1952, and studied journalism, working in the Iraqi press and radio. [read more] [top]
Said al-Kafrawi was born and brought up in a village in the Egyptian Delta. He has published 6 collections of short stories. The hill of Gypsies is the first volume to be translate. [read more] [top]
Mohja Kahf was born in Damascus, Syria, and emigrated to the US as a child with her parents, both university students. [read more] [top]
Pauline Kaldas is assistant professor of English and creative writing at Hollins University. She was born in Egypt and emigrated to the US in 1969. [read more] [top]
Ezzat el-Kamhawi was born in 1961 in Sharqia Governorate, Egypt, and is a novelist and journalist. [read more] [top]
Volker Kaminski lives in Germany. He studied German literature and Philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin, completing his MA in 1990. [read more] [top]
Khaled al-Karaki was born in al-Adnaniya in 1946. He is a critic and scholar, graduated in Arabic Literature and has a PhD in Philosophy from Cambridge University, UK. [read more] [top]
Adel Karasholi was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1936 to Kurdish parents. A member of the Arab Writers Association, he left Syria in 1957 after it was banned. [read more] [top]
Abdelkareem Kasid was born in 1946 in Basra, Iraq. He graduated in 1967 in philosophy from Damascus University, Syria, and has an MA in Translation from the University of Westminster, UK (1995). [read more] [top]
Akram al-Katreb was born in Salamiah, Syria, in 1966. He graduated in law from the university of Damascus and worked as a journalist from 1990 to 2001, publishing articles in main Arab dailies. [read more] [top]
Su'ad al-Kawari is a poet from Qatar, where she lives and works. She has published two collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Omar El-Keddi was born in Gherian in Libya in 1959. He is a poet and journalist and published one poetry collection, which was refused distribution by the authorities. [read more] [top]
Abdu Khal was born in 1962 in Saudi Arabia. He has a degree in Political Science from King Abdel Aziz University, Jeddah. [read more] [top]
Ebrahim al-Khaldi was born in Kuwait in 1971. He has published two collections of poetry and a book of essays. [read more] [top]
Khaled Khalifa was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1964 and holds a BA in Law from Aleppo University. He has written many successful screenplays for TV series as well as for the cinema. [read more] [top]
Waleed Khazendar is a Palestinian poet born in Gaza in 1950. He has published three collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Yasmine Khlat was born in Ismailia, Egypt, into a Lebanese French-speaking family. [read more] [top]
Idriss al-Khouri was born in 1939 in Casablanca, Morrocco. He writes short stories, and si a journalist on al-Ittihad al Ishtiraki newspaper. [read more] [top]
Elias Khoury was born in Beirut in 1948. A polymath literary critic, journalist, novelist, playwright, academic and intellectual. [read more] [top]
Venus Khoury-Ghata was born in Lebanon, in Besherri, the village of Gibran Kahlil Gibran. [read more] [top]
Adel Khozam is a poet, journalist, editor and broadcaster from the Emirates, born in Bahrain in 1963. [read more] [top]
Samiha Khreis has published five novels and two short story collections, the second of which, Shajarat al-Fuhood (Amman, 1995), was awarded the State Prize for Literature. [read more] [top]
Bilal Khubbayz is a poet and journalist, and writes for An-Nahar weekly cultural supplement. [read more] [top]
Nadia al-Khudari was born in Karkh, Baghdad. She has a diploma in economic systems administration and a degree in programming. [read more] [top]
James Kirkup is a poet, novelist, dramatist and translator. He has many collections of poems on a variety of themes: No More Hiroshimas (Spokesman Books), A Correct Compassion, The Descent into the Cave, The Prodigal Son, Refusal to Conform, The Body Servant, etc. [read more] [top]
Khalid Kishtainy was born in Baghdad, and has lived in the UK since shortly after the 1958 coup in Iraq. [read more] [top]
Nadiah al-Kokabany was born in Tazz, Yemen, and graduated with an MA in Architecture from Sana’a University in 2000. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim al-Koni was born in 1948 in the desert of the Tuareg, Libya. He grew up there, not learning to read or write Arabic until he was 12 years old. [read more] [top]
Zuzana Kratka was born in the Czech Republic in 1978. She lived and studied in France for many years, and graduated in Arabic and Middle East Studies from INALCO-Langues d'Orient, Paris, later studying at SOAS, London. [read more] [top]
Abdellatif Laâbi was born in 1942 in Fes, Morocco. He is a poet, essayist, playwright and author of children’s books. [read more] [top]
Shakir Laibi is a poet, born in Iraq and settled in Switzerland. He has a degree in Psychology from Al-Mustansiriya University, Baghdad, and a Masters in Political and Social Sciences from Lausanne University. [read more] [top]
Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. [read more] [top]
Rachida Lamrabet (b. 1970) is a Belgian author of Moroccan origin. She works as a lawyer for the Centre for Equality of Opportunity and Opposition to Racism in Brussels. [read more] [top]
Wafa'a Lamrani was born in 1960 in Al-Qasr al-Kabir, Morocco. In 1982, she received her diploma in Arabic Literature from the College of Literature and Humanities in Rabat. [read more] [top]
Fouad Laroui (Oudja, Morocco, 1960) is a French writer and scientist of Moroccan descent who, since the early 2000s, also publishes in Dutch. He went to Paris in 1979 to study engineering and later, specialised in econometrics. [read more] [top]
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, being described by the Nobel committee as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization". [read more] [top]
Khalid al-Maaly was born in al-Samawa, Iraq, in 1956. He is a poet, translator and publisher. [read more] [top]
Rachida Madani was born in Tangiers, in 1951, where she lives and works as a teacher of French. [read more] [top]
Nashwan Ali al-Maghafi was born in 1976 and has been running the Yemen Book Shop since he was 19 years old. [read more] [top]
Mohammad al-Maghut poet, playwright and columnist, was born in al-Salamiyaa of Syria in 1934. [read more] [top]
Naguib Mahfouz was born in the Gamaliya suburb of Cairo, and began writing when he was seventeen. [read more] [top]
Lisa Suhair Majaj is a Palestinian-American. She grew up in Jordan, studied in Lebanon and the USA and lives in Cyprus. [read more] [top]
Abdel Rahman al-Majedi was born in Baghdad in 1965. He graduated from Faculty of Languages, Baghdad University, in 1989. [read more] [top]
Rania Mamoun was born in 1979 in the Sudan. She is culture page editor of Al-Thaqafi magazine, a columnist for Ad-Adwaa newspaper and presenter of the “Silicon Valley” cultural programme on Sudanese TV. [read more] [top]
Samira al-Mana was born in Basra, Iraq, and studied Arabic Language at Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Alberto Manguel was born in 1948 in Buenos Aires. He is an internationally renowned writer, translator, film and literary critic, settled in Canada, and currently living in France. [read more] [top]
Abdel Aziz al-Maqalih In his poetry and literary criticism Abdel Aziz al-Maqalih is a modernist voice, not only in his own country of Yemen but also in the Arabian Peninsula as a whole and there he is certainly the first modernist voice. [read more] [top]
Leila Marouane was born in 1960 in Algeria. She studied French literature at the University of Algiers and the University of Paris VIII. [read more] [top]
Sherry Marx is a freelance Canadian editor and translator of Dutch fiction and non-fiction, and lives in Amersterdam. Her translations include Darwin's Dreampond: Drama in Lake Victoria, The Way of All Flesh, Tonguecat, and Daalder's Chocolates. [read more] [top]
Herbert Mason recently retired as director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Socities and Civilizations at Boston University. [read more] [top]
Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen, Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey and Japan. [read more] [top]
May Menassa was born in Beirut in 1939 and holds a postgraduate diploma in French Literature. [read more] [top]
Bassem al-Meraiby was born in Iraq in 1960. He studied acting and theatre direction in Baghdad. [read more] [top]
Philip Metres is a writer of poetry and literary history. His latest work is an epic poetic meditation on becoming a (Arab American) father on the home front . . . [read more] [top]
Mohamed Metwalli was born in Cairo in 1970. He has a BA in English Literature from Cairo University, 1992. [read more] [top]
Dunya Mikhail was born in Baghdad in 1965. She studied English Literature at Baghdad University and has published three collections of poetry in Iraq and one in Tunisia (1997). [read more] [top]
Youssef al-Mohaimeed was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1964. He is a poet and writer. [read more] [top]
Hala Mohammad was born in Lattakia, Syria. She studied film-making in Paris and worked as a costume designer for two well-known Syrian films, al-Lail and Sandouq al-Dunya. Since 1994 she has published three collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Zakariyya Mohammed is a Palestinian poet who lives in Ramallah. He is deputy editor of al-Karmel magazine of Mahmoud Darwish. He has published three collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Nacira Mohammedi is an Algerian poet, journalist and radio broadcaster on cultural affairs. She publishes her poetry in newspapers and has two collections. [read more] [top]
Fatima Mohsen was born in al-Nasiriyah, Iraq. She has a PhD in Arabic Literature. She lives in Beirut and is a literary critic, writing regularly in the Arab press. [read more] [top]
Adnan Mohsen was born in 1955 in Baghdad, Iraq, in the working class district of Al-Kasrah, on the banks of the Tigris. [read more] [top]
Salah el-Moncef was born in Kuwait in 1962, and presently lives between France and Germany, teaching American culture at Nantes Univeristy. [read more] [top]
Ali Mosbah was born in 1953 in Zaghwan, Tunisia. He studied social sciences at the Sorbonne, Paris, and Philosophy and Social Sciences in Berlin. [read more] [top]
Hassouna Mosbahi was born in 1950 in Kairouan, Tunisia, and is a writer, literary critic and freelance journalist in German newspapers. [read more] [top]
Ahmad Moualla is a painter, photographer and set designer. Born in Syria in 1958, he graduated in Visual Communications from Damascus University’s College of Fine Arts in 1981. [read more] [top]
Michel Moushabeck founded Interlink in 1987 with the help of his former wife Ruth shortly after he graduated from New York University. [read more] [top]
Malika Moustadraf is a Moroccan writer. Her debut novel [Wounds of the Soul and the Body] was published in 1989 and her first collection of short stories Trente-Six in 2004. [read more] [top]
Khulood Al-Mu'alla won the Buland Al-Haidari Award for Young Arab Poets, the first young Gulf poet to do so. [read more] [top]
Susan Muaddi Darraj Susan Muaddi Darraj’s collection of short stories, The Inheritance of Exile, was a finalist for the AWP Book Awards and named Book of the Year for short fiction by ForeWord Magazine. [read more] [top]
Khulood al-Mualla Khulood Al Mu’alla won the Buland Al-Haidari Award for Young Arab Poets at the 30th Assilah International Cultural Festival in Morocco in 2008, the first poet from the Gulf to win this award . . . [read more] [top]
Saadi Mufarreh is a poet and critic, and works as arts editor of Al-Qabas daily newspaper in Kuwait. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Muhawi is a Palestinian social scientist, linguistician and literary translator, translating most notably Mahmoud Darwish’s Memory for Forgetfulness. [read more] [top]
Ali al-Muqri is a Yemeni writer with a controversial reputation. His first novel, Taste Black...Smell Black was published in 2008 to high acclaim. [read more] [top]
Shakir Mustafa is presently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures at Boston University, USA. [read more] [top]
Suhail Sami Nader is from Iraqi and is 65 years of age. Al-Tell is his first novel. [read more] [top]
Deborah al-Najjar Deborah Al-Najjar has had received numerous of awards and fellowships. "We are all Iraqis", an anthology of Iraqi-American writing, is due out soon. [read more] [top]
Hassan Najmi was born in 1959 in Ibn Ahme, Morocco. He has a diploma in Arabic Literature from Rabat College of Literature and Humanities. [read more] [top]
Hani Nakshabandi was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He edited Sadiyah, a London-based Arab women's magazine, then moved to live an work in Dubai, editing Al-Majallah magazine and presenting a television news show. [read more] [top]
Samir Naqqash was born into a Jewish family and raised in Baghdad, Iraq, one of many families forced to leave in the 1950s when he was a young teenager. [read more] [top]
Ramsey Nasr (b. Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1974) is of mixed Palestinian-Dutch parentage: his father is a Palestinian and his mother Dutch. He is a well-respected film and theatre actor as well as an author of poetry, essays, drama and journalistic pieces. [read more] [top]
Hassan Nasr was born in 1937 in Tunis. He has been active in Tunisian literary life since Independence in 1956, and started publishing short stories in magazines in 1959. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Nasrallah was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1954, and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp. He worked in journalism from 1978 to 1996. [read more] [top]
Abdul Sattar Nasser was born in Baghdad. He published his first collection of short stories in 1968 in Baghdad and in 1971 his first novel. [read more] [top]
Amal Nawwar is a Lebanese poet and translator, who was born in Kuwait in 1964, and grew up in Sidon, Lebanon. [read more] [top]
Salwa al-Neimi was born in Damascus, Syria. Since the mid-1970s she has lived in Paris where she studied Islamic Philosophy and Theatre at the Sorbonne. [read more] [top]
Salah Niazi was born 1935 in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and has lived in Britain since 1963. [read more] [top]
Mostafa Nissabouri was born in 1943 in Casablanca, Morocco, and is a poet and short story writer. [read more] [top]
Bernard Noël is an internationally renowned poet and essayist, publishing more than 60 titles. [read more] [top]
Lulu Norman is a translator and writer, working mainly from French and Spanish with a particular interest in North African literature. [read more] [top]
Shakir Nouri was born in Jaloula, Diyala, Iraq. He has a BA in English (Baghdad University, 1972). [read more] [top]
Rachid Novaire (b. Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1979) is a great talent, discovered at an early age when he took part in (the Dutch-Arabic cultural foundation) El Hizjra's writing competition. [read more] [top]
Ahmad el-Nsour is a poet from Jordan. His poems were published in several magazines and he has two collections. [read more] [top]
Basma el-Nsour is a Jordanian short story writer and lawyer. She is editor-in-chief of the Jordanian Tayki magazine that specialises in women’s literature. [read more] [top]
Naomi Shihab Nye Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1952 to a Palestinian father and an American mother. She grew up in Ramallah, Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas, where she graduated with a BA in English and world religions. She has published many collections of poems . . . [read more] [top]
Nazum al-Obeidi was born in Baghdad in 1964. He has been a member of the Iraqi Writers’ Union since 1995. [read more] [top]
Haggag Hassan Oddoul was born in Alexandria in 1944 into a family from the Nubian region of south Egypt. [read more] [top]
Gregory Orfalea has written two acclaimed histories, The Arab Americans: A History and Messengers of the Lost Battalion and his new short story collection The Man Who Guarded the Bomb is now out. [read more] [top]
Rabia'a al-Ossaimi was born in 1975 in Sana’a, Yemen, where she still lives. She has one poetry collection. [read more] [top]
Man'a Said al-Otaiba was born in Abu Dhabi in 1946. He studied in Qatar, Britain, and Baghdad and received his PhD from Cairo University in Economics and Political Science. He was Petroleum Minister in UAE. [read more] [top]
Laila al-Ouhaydib is a Saudi short-story writer and has published one collection. She lives in Riyadh [read more] [top]
Wen-chin Ouyang was born in Taiwan, brought up in Libya and studied in the United States, gaining a PhD in Arabic Literature from Columbia University. [read more] [top]
John Peate has degrees in English and in Arabic from the University of Leeds and a Master's degree in Translation Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. [read more] [top]
Christina Phillips has a PhD in Modern Arabic Literature from SOAS and has translated a number of works from Arabic, most recently Naguib Mahfouz’s Hadith al-Sabah wa’l-Masa (Morning and Evening Talk, AUC Press, 2008), exceprted in Banipal 30. [read more] [top]
Katarzyna Pieprzak is an Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Williams College, Williamstown, USA. [read more] [top]
Rasheeda Plenty has a BA in English (University of Missouri) and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, where she is now a Zell fellow. [read more] [top]
Lorraine Pounds was born in the UK, is a sculptor and writer, and presently lives in San Francisco. [read more] [top]
Saoud Qabailat was born in Madaba in 1955. He has published two collections of short stories and one novel. [read more] [top]
Montasser al-Qaffash was born on 14 October 1964 and graduated from the Faculty of Letters, Cairo University in 1986. [read more] [top]
Yahya al-Qaissi was born in Hartha, Jordan. He studied English at Philadelphia University, Jordan, and worked as a journalist in Tunisia. [read more] [top]
Mohammad al-Qaood was born in Taiz, Yemen in 1967. He is cultural editor of al-Thawra newspaper in Sana'a. He has published 13 books of poetry, prose and short stories. [read more] [top]
Fadwa al-Qasem is a Palestinian author, born in Libya in 1963. She has Canadian citizenship, and holds a BA in English Literature. [read more] [top]
Sayed Ragab lives in Cairo. He is an actor and storyteller who has worked with the El-Warsha experimental theatre company in Cairo. [read more] [top]
Saif al-Rahbi is a poet and prose writer, born in 1956 in Sroor, a village in Oman. [read more] [top]
Hayet Raies is a Tunisian writer. She has an MA in Philosophy from Baghdad University, 1981, and a PhD in French language and literature from Sorbonne, Paris (2002). [read more] [top]
Rabia Raihane is from Morocco. She has been a teacher of Arabic language and literature, and currently works for the Ministry of National Education. [read more] [top]
Youssef Rakha was born on 12 June 1976 in Cairo. He has a first class BA Hons in English and Philosophy (Hull University, UK, 1998) and was awarded the Larkin Prize for English and the Chris Ayers Prize for Philosophy. [read more] [top]
Abdel-Monen Ramadan was born in Cairo in 1951, where he still lives and works. He has published three collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Azza Rashad was born in Al-Sharqiya province of Egypt in 1961, and has a degree in medicine and surgery, specialising in paediatrics and working in Health Ministry hospitals. [read more] [top]
Mouayed al-Rawi was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1939 and is a painter, poet and journalist. He played an important role in the cultural life of 1960s’ Iraq. [read more] [top]
Dalia Riadh was born in 1974 in Baghdad, where she still lives. She publishes her poetry in Iraqi and Arab newspapers. No 8 [read more] [top]
Taher Riadh was born in Amman. Since 1983 he has published four collections of poetry and has translated a work of Herman Hesse and selections of Sufi poetry. [read more] [top]
Susan Ridder (Rotterdam, 1966) translates to and from Dutch and English. Her work includes non-fiction and fiction, also children's literature and poetry, also numerous texts for the NLPVF. She is currently translating two new novels. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud al-Rimawi was born in 1948 in Bayt Rima, West of Ramallah. He has worked as a journalist in Beirut, Cairo, Kuwait and Amman, and lives in Amman. [read more] [top]
Nancy Roberts is the translator of Egyptian author Salwa Bakr's The Man from Bashmour, which was commended for the 2008 Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. [read more] [top]
Tetz Rooke lives and works in Sweden. He has a PhD in Arabic from Stockholm University with a dissertation on Arabic autobiography In My Childhood. [read more] [top]
Wadih Sa'adeh was born in Lebanon in 1954. He has published seven collections of poems. [read more] [top]
Hadia Sa'id is a Lebanese writer and journalist. Born in Beirut, she has lived in Iraq and Morocco and for many years in London. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Sa'id was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1939. He published his first collection of short stories Port Said and Other Short Stories in 1957. [read more] [top]
Ahmad Saadawi was born in Baghdad in 1973 and is a novelist, poet, painter and journalist. [read more] [top]
Abdul H. Sadoun was born in Baghdad in 1968. He has a degree in Spanish language and literature. [read more] [top]
Hazim Saghieh was born in 1951 in Lebanon. He is a writer and journalist and worked on As-Safir newspaper in Beirut 1974-1989. [read more] [top]
Amina Said was born in Tunis in 1953 and has lived in Paris since 1978. She writes in French and has published eight volumes of poetry and two volumes of re-invented Tunisian folk-tales. [read more] [top]
Mekkawi Said was born in Cairo in 1955. He has been a publisher, script writer and regular contributor to children's magazines, and has five collections of short stories, his first published in 1981. [read more] [top]
Jackleen Salam (pen name Jackleen Hanna) is a writer, poet and journalist who emigrated from Syria to Canada in 1997. [read more] [top]
Christa Salamandra is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University of New York. [read more] [top]
Salima Saleh was born in 1942 in Mosul, Iraq. She studied Law in Baghdad and Journalism in Leipzig and now lives in Berlin. [read more] [top]
Abdullah Salhi was born in 1968 in Beni Milal, Morocco. Since 1990 he has lived in Bordeaux and Paris. [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Samuel was born in Damascus in 1951. He graduated in Philosophy and Social Studies from Damascus University in 1982. [read more] [top]
Mahdi Issa al-Saqr With the death of Mahdi Issa al-Saqr on 14 March 2006, Iraqi fiction has lost its pioneering author, just three weeks after his novel Beit ala Nahr Dijla [House on the Tigris], written in 1992, was published. [read more] [top]
Salam Sarhan was born in Iraq in 1961. A poet and journalist, he lives in London and works in TV broadcasting. [read more] [top]
Saad Sarhane was born in Fes, Morocco. Since the 1980s he has lived in Marrakesh, teaching mathematics. [read more] [top]
Habib Abdulrab Sarori is a professor of computer science at the University of Rouen, France. He has published many scholarly articles and books in French and English. [read more] [top]
Nazem al-Sayed Nazem al-Sayed was born in 1975. He has published four collections of poetry and his work has been included in several anthologies. [read more] [top]
Sadeq al-Sayegh was born in 1936 in Baghdad, Iraq. He has worked in the press, television and radio and published poetry and essays in Iraqi and Arab magazines. [read more] [top]
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab died tragically at the early age of 38, but in his short life he was largely responsible for a wholescale revolution in Arab poetics through his poetic experimentation and innovation at a time of great turmoil in the Arab world – the end of the Second World War and the creation of Israel. [read more] [top]
Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946, into an Aramaic-speaking family, and started writing at a young age. [read more] [top]
Victor Schiferli (b. Haarlem, 1967, The Netherlands) is a poet, freelance journalist and editor. His first collection was published in 2000. His third, Tospraak in een struik [A Speech in the Bushes], 2008, was shortlisted for the Hugues C Pernath Prize. [read more] [top]
Michael Scott teaches introductory Arabic and translates contemporary Arabic fiction. He spent 25 years in the Arab world and South Asia. [read more] [top]
Samah Selim is an Egyptian-born translator and professor of Modern Arabic literature at Rutgers University. Her most recent translation is The Collar and the Bracelet, a novel by the late Yahya Taher Abdullah. [read more] [top]
Habib Selmi was born in al-’Ala, Tunisia, in 1951. He has published seven novels and two collections of short stories. [read more] [top]
Shawqi Shafiq is a Yemeni poet and translator. He has published eight books of poetry some of which have been translated into English, French, German, Swedish and Hebrew. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Shaheen is Jordanian, and the Vice-President of Mu'tah University, Jordan. [read more] [top]
Mohammad al-Shaibani works as a cultural journalist and lives in Sana'a. He has published three collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Evelyn Shakir Boston based Evelyn Shakir has published short stories and personal essays in a number of journals and collections. She is also the author of Bint Arab: Arab and Arab American Women in the United States. [read more] [top]
Anton Shammas is a Palestinian poet and author, essayist and translator of Arabic, Hebrew and English. [read more] [top]
Bassam Shamseldin was born in Ib, Yemen in 1978. He has published three collections of stories and three novels. [read more] [top]
Hisham Sharabi was Professor of History Emeritus and founder of Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. [read more] [top]
Hanan al-Shaykh was born in Lebanon, and grew up there, moving to Cairo when she was a teenager and writing her first novel there. [read more] [top]
Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1952 to a Palestinian father and an American mother. [read more] [top]
Samuel Shimon was born into an Assyrian family in 1956 in Al-Habbaniyah, Iraq. He left Iraq in 1979 to go to Hollywood and become a film-maker, and got as far as Damascus, Amman, Beirut, Nicosia, Cairo and Tunis. [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Shukair was born in 1941 in Jerusalem and grew up there. He studied at Damascus University and has an MA in Philosophy and Sociology (1965). [read more] [top]
Fawziyya al-Sindi is a Bahraini poet. Since 1982 she has published five collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Nihad Sirees was born in 1950 in Aleppo, Syria. A novelist and screenwriter since the 1980s, he still works as a civil engineer in Aleppo. [read more] [top]
Olivia Snaije is a journalist and former commissioning editor at Saqi Books. She lives in Paris. [read more] [top]
Alawiyya Sobh was born in Beirut in 1955. She studied Arabic and English Literature at the Lebanese National University in Beirut and has authored four novels. [read more] [top]
Mohammed Sof was born in Casablanca in 1950. He studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at Bordeaux University. [read more] [top]
Kathryn Stapley has a DPhil in Arabic Linguistics from Oxford University, an MSt in Arabic from Oxford University and a BA Hons in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Exeter University. [read more] [top]
Jenny Steel was born in London in 1980. She has a 1st Class BA in Oriental Studies from King's College, Cambridge, and is fluent in Arabic, Persian, and French. [read more] [top]
Salah Stétié was born in Beirut in 1929. He is an internationally renowned poet, essayist and critic and has been writing and publishing his poetry since the mid 1960s. [read more] [top]
Mustafa Stitou (b. Tetouan, Morocco, 1974) made his debut with Mijn vormen [My Forms] in 1994. The combination of its unusual tone with original images and perspective prompted a nomination for the C. Buddingh Prize for first collections of poetry. [read more] [top]
Mark Strand was US Poet Laureate in 1990 and in 1999 won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Blizzard of One. [read more] [top]
Luzette Strauss studied Afrikaans/Nederlands at the University of Cape Town. She has worked as a journalist, teacher and translator in South Africa and the UK, where she now lives. She has translated Mahala by Chris Barnard from Afrikaans (Aflame Books 2009). [read more] [top]
KHALIL SUWAILIH was born in Syria in 1959. He has a BA in History (Damascus University,1986). [read more] [top]
Abdelkarim al-Tabbal is a poet, born in 1931 in Morocco. He has a diploma in Islamic Studies and started publishing his work in 1954. [read more] [top]
Maia Tabet was born and raised in Beirut but is now based in the USA. She has worked as a journalist, editor and freelance translator. [read more] [top]
Abdullah Taezi was born in 1964 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He has MAs in Engineering Communications and Electronics (1987) and in Management (1994), and works for Aramco. [read more] [top]
Abu-Youssef Taha was born in 1946 in Marrakech, Morocco, and now works as an inspector of secondary schools. [read more] [top]
Amir Tahiri is an Iranian-born journalist, educated in Tehran, London and Paris. He is the author of 11 books on Islam, Iran, the Soviet Union and the Middle East. [read more] [top]
Fuad al-Takarli was one of Iraq’s pioneering fiction writers. Born in Baghdad in 1927, he graduated in Law from Baghdad University in 1949 and worked in the Justice Ministry, becoming a judge in 1956. [read more] [top]
Adam Talib is an alumnus of the University of California, Los Angeles and the American University in Cairo, and is presently pursuing a doctorate in Arabic literature at Oxford. [read more] [top]
Nirvana Tanoukhi has a BA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut, and studied and worked at Arkansas and Texas universities. [read more] [top]
Susannah Tarbush was born in Bognor Regis, England, and educated at Oxford University, from where she has a BA in Psychology and Philosophy and an MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. [read more] [top]
Suleman Taufiq was born in 1953 in Syria and grew up in Damascus. He went to Germany in 1971 to study Philosophy and Comparative Literature. [read more] [top]
Izz al-din al-Tazi was born in 1948 in Fez, Morocco. In 1986, he obtained a diploma in Higher Education and currently teaches in Tatwan. [read more] [top]
Habib Tengour was born in Mostaganem, west Algeria, in 1947 and his family moved to France to escape persecution when he was five years old. [read more] [top]
Lina Tibi was born in 1963 in Damascus, Syria, and has lived in Kuwait, UAE, Lebanon, Cyprus, the UK, France and Egypt. [read more] [top]
Mai Tilmissany was born in Cairo in 1965. She has an MA in French Literature from Cairo University and is completing a doctorate on aspects of Egyptian cinema at the University of Montreal. [read more] [top]
Rana al-Tonsi was born in Cairo in 1981. She graduated from the American University in Cairo with a degree in Arab Studies and is currently teaching at the British School in Cairo. [read more] [top]
Farouk Abdel Wahab Farouk Abdel Wahab is the pen-name of Farouk A W Mustafa, Ibn Rushd Professorial Lecturer in Modern Arabic Language in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Associate Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, both at the University of Chicago. [read more] [top]
Najm Wali was born in al-Amara, Iraq, on 20 October 1956, and has a degree in German Literature from Baghdad University. [read more] [top]
Patricia Sarrafian Ward Author and artist Patricia Sarrafian Ward grew up in Beirut during the Civil War. Her novel The Bullet Collection received the GLCA New Writers Award, the Anahid Literary Award and the Hala Maksoud Award for Outstanding Emerging Writers. [read more] [top]
Haytham al-Wardany was born in Cairo in 1972. He has a degree in electronic engineering from Cairo University (1995). [read more] [top]
Laura Watkinson Laura Watkinson studied medieval and modern languages at St. Anne's College, Oxford University, and linguistics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University. She translates from Dutch, German and Italian into English and has a particular interest in contemporary art, literature and children's books. [read more] [top]
Taher Wattar was born in 1936 in Algeria. Since his first collection of short stories in 1965, he has published two plays, three volumes of stories, and nine novels. [read more] [top]
Stephen Watts was born in London in 1952. He is a poet, poetry translator and indefatigable researcher into poetry translation. [read more] [top]
Abdo Wazen was born in Beirut in 1957. He is a poet, and cultural editor of the international daily Al-Hayat newspaper. [read more] [top]
Max Weiss earned his PhD in History from Stanford in 2007 and is now Postdoctoral Fellow in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. [read more] [top]
Pippa Woodhead has a degree in Philosophy and History of Art and currently lives and works in London as a freelance journalist. [read more] [top]
Ahmad Yamani was born in Cairo in 1970. He has published four books of poetry and has been living in Spain since 2001. [read more] [top]
Fouad Yazaji was born in the small village of Marmarita, Syria, in 1959. He studied in the Soviet Union for a year and after that lived in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany before returning to Syria. [read more] [top]
Iman H. Younes is a Lebanese writer, born in December 1956. She is married and has three children. [read more] [top]
Samir el-Youssef is a Palestinian writer, born in Lebanon in 1965. He has published two collections of short stories. [read more] [top]
Zahra Yusri was born in Cairo in 1974. She studied Arabic literature and language. [read more] [top]
Ali Mohammed Zayd was born in Yemen in 1953. He has a BA and MA from the American University of Beirut, and a PhD from the Sorbonne. [read more] [top]
Ahmad Zein was born in Yemen in 1968. He lives in Saudi Arabia where he works as cultural editor for Al-Hayat newspaper. He has published two collections of short stories and two novels. [read more] [top]
Habib el-Zeyoudi was born in al-Alouk (near al-Zarqa, Jordan) in 1963. He has published three collections of poetry. He is head of the Jordanian House of Poetry. [read more] [top]
Youssef Ziedan was born in Suhag, Egypt, in 1958. He is a Professor of Islamic Philosophy and History of the Sciences, and Director of the Centre for Manuscripts and of the Museum of Manuscripts at the Library of Alexandria. [read more] [top]
Abdullah Zreka was born in Casablanca in 1953, where he still lives. He published his first collection of poetry in 1977, five between 1981–1995, and two novels between 1991–1998, as well as three collections in French. [read more] [top]
Nabila al-Zubair is a Yemeni poet, short story writer and novelist. She has written six books, and some of her poetry has been translated into English, Spanish and French. [read more] [top]
Sabah Zwein is a Lebanese poet and critic. She works for the Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar. [read more] [top]
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