Banipal (UK) Magazine of Modern Arab Literature - Contributors
 

A-Z of Banipal's contributors (by family name) – authors, translators, 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.

Ann El Safi

Ann El Safi is a Sudanese writer, journalist and engineer currently living between Abu Dhabi and Canada.

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Ines Abassi is an internationally published Tunisian poet

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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.

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Luay Hamza Abbas was born in 1965 in Basra, Iraq. He has a PhD from Basra University (2002), where he teaches literary criticism.

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Hassan Abdallah bio-data coming soon

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Ibtisam Abdallah is an Iraqi novelist, short-story writer and literary translator.

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Yasir Abdel Baqi writes novels, short stories and screenplays. He is the editorial director for Al-Manara magazine.

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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.

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Yasser Abdel Hafez (Abd el-Hafez)

is a novelist and journalist, born in Cairo in 1969. He graduated in Law from Ain Shams University.

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Sarah H. Abdel Halim is a Palestinian translator, who translates between Spanish, English and Arabic.

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Ahmed Abdel Hussain was born in Baghdad in 1966. He published his first writing in 1982.

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Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919–1990)

Ihsan Abdel Kouddous (1919–1990) is one of the pillars of modern Arabic literature.

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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.

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Yasser Abdel Latif was born in Cairo in 1969. He graduated from Cairo University in Philosophy in 1994.

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Hassan Abdel Mawgoud

is an Egyptian writer and journalist, born in 1976, who has published three short story collections and two novels.

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Ibrahim Abdel Meguid was born in Alexandria in 1946. He is one of Egypt’s most respected and well-known of authors.

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Farouk Abdel Wahab Farouk Abdel Wahab was the pen-name of Farouk A W Mustafa, translator and Ibn Rushd Professorial Lecturer in Modern Arabic Language and Associate Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, who died, aged 70 years, on 3 April 2013.

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Mahmood Abdel Wahab was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1929. While still at school he wrote a play The Miserable.

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Marie-Therese Abdel-Messih is Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the University of Cairo.

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Muhammad (Mohammed) Abdelnabi (Abdel Nabi)

is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer, and teaches creative writing.

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Ashraf Abdelshafy was born on 29 July 1969 in El-Minya, Egypt. He has a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Cairo University

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Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula is a writer and poet from Syria

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Noel Abdulahad was born in Bethlehem, and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. He was a poet, critic and translator from Arabic, and particularly enjoyed translating poetry.

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Ahmad Abdulatif

Ahmad Abdulatif (b.1978) is a novelist, translator, journalist, and researcher from Cairo.

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Samir Abdulfattah has authored three collections of short stories, two novels and may plays for the theatre.

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Luay Abdul-Ilah 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.

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Mona Abdulkader al-Ali is a short story writer and painter, born in Dubai.

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Einas Abdullah has published a collection of poetry and a novel "La mala’ikah fi Ramallah" (There are no Angels in Ramallah), and is working on her second novel.

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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.

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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.

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Hassan Abdulrazzak Hassan Abdulrazzak is an Iraqi playwright and novelist, best known for his highly successful play Baghdad Wedding.

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Abdallah Abdulwahab is a poet, born in 1963 in UAE.

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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.

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Pierre Abi Saab is a Lebanese journalist and Cultural Editor of Al-Akhbar daily newspaper

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Elmaz Abinader is author of a Memoir, Children of the Roojme, a collection of poetry, In The Country of my Dreams and several one-woman shows.

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Huda (Hoda) Ablan was born in 1971 in Ib, Yemen. In 1993 she obtained a Masters degree in Political Science from Sana’a University.

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Menna Abo Zahra

Menna Abo Zahra is an Egyptian poet whose poems and writings have been published in magazines, books and online.

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Leila Aboulela was born in Cairoo and grew up in Khartoum, now a well-known novelist and writer.

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Hosam Aboul-Ela is an associate professor at the University of Houston, Texas.

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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.

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Rasmi Abu Ali was born in 1937 in al-Malha, Jerusalem.

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Kamal Abu Deeb is holder of the Chair of Arabic at the University of London.

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Hamdi Abu Golayyel

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.

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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.

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Jamal Abu Hamdan was born in 1944 in Jabal Al-Arab, Syria, while the family was moving from Lebanon to Jordan.

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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.

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Samer Abu Hawwash

was born in Beirut in 1972 to a family of Palestinian refugees and lives in the UAE. His first collection of poetry (in Arabic), Life is Printed in New York, was published in 1997.

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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.

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Yusuf Abu Rayya (1955-2009) was born in Hihya in the Nile Delta. He published six short story collections, five novels, and seven books for children.

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Atef Abu Saif is a Palestinian writer.

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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.

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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.

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Zuhayr Abu Shayeb was born in Amman. He has published two collections of poetry in 1986 and 1987.

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Mosab Abu Toha

Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and writer from Gaza, and  founder of the Edward Said Public Library in Gaza.

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Maya Abul Hayyat is an award-winning young Palestinian writer of novels, poetry and short stories. Her new novel will be published by Dar Al-Adaab in January 2013.

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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.

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Fathi Abul Nasr is the author of two books - one poetry anthology and one collection of poems with narrative texts.

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Mona Abulnasr

Mona Abulnasr is an Egyptian writer and literary critic. 

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Zuleikha Abu-Risha has published her poetry in several literary magazines and has three collections, the first 1998. She studied at Exeter University, UK.

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Redwan Abushwesha is a writer and a painter. He has published one collection of short stories, a novel, several texts on Libyan history, and in English translation, The King of the Dead and other Libyan Tales.

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Kareem James Abu-Zeid born into an Egyptian American family, he has lived an itinerant life. He was a runner-up for the 2010 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

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Mohammed Achaari is a Moroccan poet and author, 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.

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Hisham Adam is a Sudanese novelist and short story writer, currently living in Belgium.

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Majid Addam was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1972, and graduated from the Baghdad Institute of Technology in 1993.

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Yassin Adnan

is an author, literary journalist and broadcaster from Morocco.

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Taha Adnan He's a Moroccan poet and he organizes an annual Arabic literary festival, Al-Salon al-Adabi in Brussels.

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Etel Adnan (1925–2021)

was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and painter, internationally renowned for her poetry and her artworks. She studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the universities of Berkeley and Harvard, and taught Philosophy in San Rafael, California.

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Adonis is an internationally renowned poet, essayist, and theoretician of poetics. He was born Ali Ahmad Said in Kassabeen, Syria, in 1930, and adopted the name Adonis when he was 17. He co-founded the ground-breaking modern poetry magazine, Sh’ir, and later Muwaqaf magazine.

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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.

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Mofleh al-Adwan is a short story writer, born in Jordan in 1966. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Jordan University.

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Nizar Aghri

Nizar Aghri is a Syrian-Kurdish writer and translator, born in Turkey in 1961.

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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.

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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.

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Mohammad Jamil Ahmad is a poet and critic from Sudan.

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Hagar Hesham Ahmed is an Assistant Lecturer at Ain Shams University, Cairo, where she is pursuing a PhD in Drama.

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Abdul Hamid Ahmed is a pioneer short story writer in the Emirates, born in Dubai.

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Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp is a British translator of Arabic, German and Russian into English.

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Ibrahim Ahmidan is a short story writer and literary editor from Tripoli.

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Abdelouahab Aissaoui

Abdelouahab Aissaoui is an award-winning Algerian novelist, born in Djelfa, Algeria, in 1985.

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Nesreen Akhtarkhavari Nesreen Badi Akhtarkhavar was born in the city of Irbid, Jordan. She graduated with a Law degree from the University of Jordan in 1982, and received a Master’s in Criminology (1984) and Ph.D. in Multilingual Multi-Cultural Education from Florida State University in 1992.

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Younis al-Akhzami

is a writer from Oman, born in 1968. He headed the Short Story Writers Association in Oman in 2006 and 2007 and has been a judge on many local literary competitions.

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Mersel Faleh Al Ajami is a Kuwaiti critic and academic.

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Sultan Al Ameemi is an Emirati writer. His second novel was longlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction

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Shahad Al Rawi is an Iraqi writer, born in Baghdad in 1986 and now living in Dubai.

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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.

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Zaid Alamiri

is a translator between Arabic, English and Spanish

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Osama Alaysa is a writer and journalist, born in Bethlehem, Palestine, in 1963.

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Astrid Alben is a poet, editor and translator from Dutch to English.

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Fatma Alboudy Fatma Alboudy is the publisher of Dar al-Ain, based in Cairo

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Khalid Albudoor is at the forefront of the modern poetry movement in Dubai, where he was born. He won the Al-Khal Prize for Poetry in Lebanon in 1991, and has published five poetry collections.

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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.

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Raja Alem is an award-winning author from Jeddah, Saudia Arabia. She was joint-winner of the 2011 IPAF Arabic novel prize.

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Edward Alexander is a translator between Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and English who splits his time between the UK and Croatia.

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Ahmed Alfaitouri is a journalist and writer, born in Benghazi, Libya in 1955.

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Muniam Alfaker was born in Iraq in 1953. He left in 1979 and lived in Beirut and Damascus before settling in Copenhagen.

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Fatena Alghorra

is a Palestinian poet and journalist living in Belgium. She has published, in Arabic, four books of poetry.

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Ghazi Algosaibi (1940-2010) was a respected Saudi intellectual, poet, essayist and critic, and government minister, well known in the Arab world in the worlds of academia, politics and diplomacy.

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Jokha Alharthi (al-Harthi)

is an Omani author and Professor of Literature at Sultan Qaboos University.

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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.

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Fatima 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”.

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Marwan Ali was born in 1968 in Qamishle, Syria. He started publishing poetry in 1999 in Arab quarterlies and newspapers.

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Taha Muhammad Ali (1931 - 2011) was born in Saffuriyah, near Nazareth. He was 17 when the Saffuriyans were forced out of their village by the Jewish army in July 1948.

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Mohamed Ali Yousfi Tunisian writer, poet and literary critic.

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Pius Alibek Was born in Ankawa in northern Iraq and now lives and works in Barcelona.

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Norah Alkharashi

is a PhD Candidate in Translation Studies at the School of Translation and Interpretation at the University of Ottawa

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Omar Abulqasim Alkikli is a Libyan short story writer, editor and translator.

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Nadia Alkowkabani was born in Taiz, Yemen. She has published five collections and stories and three novels, selections of which have been translated into English, French, German and Italian.

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Roger Allen

is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.

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Monir Almajid was born in 1951 in Qamishli, Syria. He graduated from Damascus University in the Faculty of Fine Arts

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Ammar Almamoun

is a Syrian journalist and literary critic, living in Paris.

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Joselyn Michelle Almeida

is a poet, editor and scholar, specializing in the transoceanic Anglo-Hispanic archive during the Age of Revolutions.

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Mustafa Taj Aldeen Almosa

is a Syran author and playwright with six short story collections, published between 2012 and 2019, and two plays.

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Mohammed Alnaas

is a short story writer and journalist from Libya, born in 1991.

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Faouzia Aloui Is a Tunisian poet and fiction writer.

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Ahmed Alrahbi is an Omani journalist and short story writer, born in Muscat in 1971.

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Taleb Alrefai

is a Kuwaiti author, with three novels translated into English and two of them published by Banipal Books.

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Khalil Alrez

is a Syrian novelist and translator, born in 1956.

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Hussain Alsagaaf Hussain Alsagaaf is an Iraqi art critic and writer, living in Denmark. He has a book of essays on the Iraqi novel, and has written two novels himself.

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Saud Alsanousi

is a Kuwaiti novelist, journalist and winner of the 2013 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

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Manhal Alsarraj (Sarraj) is a Syrian author who has lived in Sweden since 2006.

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Ahmed Alsoudani was born in Baghdad in 1975, and left Iraq during the first Gulf War, settling in the USA, where he graduated in 2008 from Yale School of Art.

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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.

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Jaafar Al-Aluni

is a Syrian poet and translator, born in Damascus in 1989.

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Mohammed Hasan Alwan

was born in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia in 1979. He has published four novels and a collection of short stories.

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Jaber Alwan was born in Babylon, Iraq, in 1948 in 1970 from the Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad.

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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.

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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.

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Eli Amir

was born in 1937 in Baghdad and moved to Israel at the age of 13.

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Mohammed al-Amiry was born in al-Qulaiat, Jordan River Valley, in 1961.

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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.

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Mohammed al-Anaizi is a short story writer and researcher, born in Benghazi in 1963.

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Ziad al-Anany was born in Naour, Jordan, in 1962. Since 1988 he has published four collections of poetry.

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Mona Anis is a writer and translator from Egypt.

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Jan-Willem Anker has four collections of poetry and has been a programmer for the Rotterdam Poetry International. His work has been translated into French and German.

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Basim al-Ansar

has been publishing his poetry since the early 1990s . . .

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Omar al-Ansari was born in Timbuktu in 1966. His debut novel is Al-Rijal al-Zurq (The Blue Men) about the Tuareg.

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Brother Anthony of Taize is an translator of Korean literature born in England.

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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.

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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.

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Anis Arafai Has published nine collections of short stories.

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Mohammed al-Arashiya was born in Sirte, Libya, in 1966 and writes short stories, novels and poetry.

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Mohamed Arbi

is a poet from Tunisia, born in 1985 and with three published collections of poetry.

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Sawsan al-Areeqi is a poet and co-founder of www.anaween.co. website.

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Maissa Arfaoui

is a Tunisian professor and translator, born in 1991.

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Tarek el-Ariss teaches contemporary Middle Eastern culture and literature, media, film, and Arabic and European intellectual history at New York University.

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Mustapha Arrar Known as Arrar, Mustapha Wahbi al-Tal (1899-1949) is considered one of the most popular poets in Jordan.

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Anna Asbury studied Classics and Linguistics at Cambridge University, then found her way into literary translation through a summer course with the Dutch Foundation for Literature.

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Mohammed al-Asfar is a Libyan novelist, who began writing in 1999. He has ten published novels and two collections of short stories.

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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.

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Radwa Ashour Radwa Ashour was an Egyptian author, scholar and translator.

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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.

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Waiel Ashry is an Egyptian writer and translator who currently resides in New York City where he studies Arabic literature at NYU.

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Ibrahim Aslan (1936-2012) was a leading Egyptian novelist and short story writer. His first novel, translated as The Heron, was voted as one of the 100 best Arabic books of the 20th century, and adapted into the film Kit Kat. He will be much missed.

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Jawad Al-Assadi is a leading theatre director, playwright, researcher and poet, born in Karbala, Iraq, in 1947.

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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).

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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.

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Alaa Al-Aswany was born in 1957 and educated at the Lycée Français in Cairo, Cairo University, and the University of Illinois, Chicago.

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Seema Atalla was born in New York, completed high school in Amman, Jordan, and now lives in Southern California.

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Fahad al-Ateeq (Fahd al-Atiq) was born in Riyadh. He is a fiction writer and since 1985 has published 5 short story collections and one novel.

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Majed Atef was born in Ramallah, Palestine, in 1972. He has three collections of short stories.

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Laila al-Atrash is a Palestinian novelist, born in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, in 1948.

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Fouad El-Auwad Fouad El-Auwad was born in Damascus, Syria, in 1965, and lives in Germany.

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Akl Awit is a poet, critic, journalist and university professor, born in Lebanon in 1952.

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Salah Awwad

is an Iraqi poet and journalist, born in 1956 in Bagdad. He left Iraq in 1979 and in 1988 settled in the USA.

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Kamal Ayadi Kamal Ayadi was born in 1967 and is a Tunisian writer and journalist.

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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).

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Asma'a Azaizeh won the A M Qattan Foundation's Young Writer Award in 2010 and had her first collection of poetry published in 2011.

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Ibtisam Azem

is a Palestinian writer and journalist. Her second novel, The Book of Disappearance, is published in English and Italian translations.

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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).

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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.

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Samira Azzam She was a pioneering Palestinian writer, publishing five novels and numerous short stories in her short life.

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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.

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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.

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Adil Babikir

is a Sudanese translator into and out of English & Arabic, living now in Abu Dhabi.

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Gabriela Babnik was born in Göppingen, Germany. Her works include two novels and a radio play.

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Ali Bader is an award-winning Iraqi novelist and journalist.

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Liana Badr

is a well-known Palestinian novelist, and short story writer, also a journalist, poet and film maker

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Enas al-Badran was born in Iraq and is a journalist and translator.

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Vasile Baghiu is a prominent Romanian poet and fiction writer, and member of both the Writers’ Union of Romania and the PEN Club.

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Abdallah Uld Mohamadi Bah is a writer, novelist and journalist from Nabaghiya, southern Mauritania.

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Hesham Bahari is the author of two novels in the Swedish language, and the publisher of Alhambra Förlag in Sweden.

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Tareq Bakari is from Missour, eastern Morocco. He is an author and teaches Arabic language in Meknes.

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Basheer al-Baker was born in Al-Hassaka, Syria, in 1956. He has been publishing his poetry in several Arab literary magazines.

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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.

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Mohammad Bakri is a Palestinian actor and filmmaker who has won many awards, including the Palestine Award for Cinema, the award for Best Documentary twice, and the best actor award for "Private"(2006) at the Locarno Film Festival.

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Ya‘qub Balbul (Baghdad 1920 – Israel 2003)

was an Iraqi Jewish writer. His literary works were published in Arabic, and he achieved recognition as early as 1936 after publishing an article in the Iraqi journal, Al-Hatif.

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Shimon Ballas (Baghdad 1930 – Israel 2019)

was born in Baghdad in 1930 and immigrated to Israel in 1951.

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Aida Bamia is a former Professor in the African and Asian Languages and Literatures Department at the University of Florida, USA.

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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.

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Thuraya Al-Baqsami is a Kuwaiti artist and writer, born in 1951.

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Ibtisam Barakat

is a celebrated author, poet, translator and artist from Palestine. She lives in the United States and writes in both English and Arabic. 

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Salim Barakat is of Kurdish origin, born in 1951 in Qamishli, Syria, where he was brought up and spent most of his adult life.

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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.

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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.

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Halim Barakat was born in 1933 into a Greek-Orthodox Arab family in Kafroun, Syria.

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Najwa Barakat

is a novelist and journalist, born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1960, who studied theatre and film.

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Mourid Barghouti (1944–2021)

is a prominent and celebrated Palestinian poet who lived most of his life, and died, in exile.

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Eyad Barghuthy is a short story writer, playwright and script writer. He works as editor for the weekly Fasl Al-Maqaal journal and is Project Director for the Arab Cultural Association in Nazareth. He lives in Acre.

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Muheeb Barghuty is a Palestinian poet and photographer. He has published two collections of short stories.

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Jalal Barjas

Jalal Barjas is a Jordanian poet and novelist, born in 1970, published work includes two poetry collections, short stories, travel literature and novels. 

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Ishaq Bar-Moshe (1927–2003)

was born and raised in Baghdad.

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Orit Bashkin

is a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Chicago, working on the intellectual, social and cultural history of the Arab world.

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Iman Bassir is a novelist and playwright, with a nursing degree from Ramallah.

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Raouf Mousaad Basta was born in 1937 in Sudan. He studied journalism in Cairo and joined a left-wing organisation.

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Issa Batarseh is a poet of Jordanian origin who lives in California. He has published two collections of poetry.

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Raji Bathish is a Palestinian writer. His play "Fiqdan" (Loss) incorporates poetry, modern dance and video art.

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Antonia Baum is a short story writer and novelist from Germany.

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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.

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Mahmoud al-Bayaty (d.2014) , the Iraqi writer and journalist, passed away on Friday 31 October 2014, at his home in London.

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Faraj Bayraqdar was born in 1951 in the village of Tir near Homs, central Syria.

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Said el-Baz is a Moroccan poet and translator who lives in Agadir.

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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.

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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.

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Azouz Begag He is a French writer, politician and researcher in economics and sociology.

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Almog Behar

is a poet, novelist, translator, editor and critic.

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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.

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Farid Belkahia Was born in 1934 in Marrakesh.

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Anthea Bell was born in Suffolk and educated at Somerville College, Oxford.

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Mohammed al-Belushi is an Omani short story writer who was born in Qurayyat, Oman, in 1970.

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Rawdha al-Belushi was born in Al Ain in 1975, and has been publishing her stories since 1983.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Rajae Benchemsi Is a poet and novelist, born in Meknes, Morocco.

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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.

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Mohammed Bennis is a poet born in Fès, Morocco, in 1948.

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Noura Bensaad Is a Tunisian writer.

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Mohammed Bentalha was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1950. From 1979 to 1981 he was general secretary of the Union of Writers.

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Mohamed Berrada is a well-known Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator.

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Hanna Bervoets writes novels, columns and scripts. Her columns for Volkskrant magazine are hugely popular in the Netherlands.

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Nouredine Betayeb Is a Tunisian writer and campaigner

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Abbas Beydoun was born in Tyre, Lebanon in 1945. He graduated in Arabic Literature from the Lebanese University, Beirut.

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Annamaria Bianco has a BA in Arabic language and literature from the University of Naples L’Orientale.

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Spela Bibic (1986) has a degree in Translation Studies (English-French) and is an undergraduate student of Slovene Language and Literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She mostly translates short fiction into English.

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Hussein Bin Hamza was born in Al-Hassaka, Syria, in 1963. Since 1995 he has lived and worked in Beirut.

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Najwa Bin Shatwan (Binshatwan)

was born in 1970 in Ijdabla, Libya. She is a poet, fiction writer and award-winning dramatist.

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Mahi Binebine Mahi Binebine is a well-known painter and, since 1992, the acclaimed author of nine novels. He lives in the city of his birth, Marrakech.

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Mohamed el-Bisatie (-2012) , the writers' writer from Egypt, passed away on 14 July 2012. Born and brought up in the Nile Delta, since 1968 he has published seven volumes of short stories and eleven novels, with six works published in English translation.

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Badriya al-Bishr is a Saudi Arabian writer, born in Riyadh in 1967.

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Haifa Bitar is a Syrian author and ophthalmologist, living in Latakia, Syria. She has published 11 collections of short stories and 9 novels, including the much praised “A Woman of This Modern Age”.

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Emad Blake is a Sudanese novelist and critic, born in 1972.

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Allison Blecker

is an academic researcher in Middle East studies and a translator of modern Arabic poetry into English.

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Paul Blezard is a broadcaster and writer.

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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.

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Keith Bosley For over 30 years Keith Bosley combined a day job at the BBC World Service with a literary career. He has published a few books of poems and many of verse translation, including the Penguin Mallarmé, an anthology of German love poetry and the Finnish epic The Kalevala.

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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).

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Hafid Bouazza (b. Oujda, Morocco, 1970) came to The Netherlands in 1977.

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Kader Boubekri is a poet born in Algeria in 1943. He has published his poetry in several Arab magazines. He lives in Paris.

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Rashid Boudjedra was born in 1941 in Ain-Beide, Algeria. He published his first and immediately acclaimed novel La Répudiation in 1969, beginning a successful career as novelist and scriptwriter.

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Siham Bouhlal was born in 1966 in Casablanca, Morocco.

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Issa J Boullata (1929–2019)

eminent scholar, writer and critic, an educator and translator, born in Jerusalem in 1929, was a tremendous supporter and contributing editor of Banipal magazine for many years.

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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.

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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.

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Mahmoud al-Braikan was a highly regarded poet, and was born in al-Zubair, southern Iraq.

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Emma Branagan reviews children's books.

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Clementina Brown

Clementina Brown is a poet and translator, based in the USA.

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Stephen Brown is a scriptwriter, editor, journalist and translator from German.

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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.

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Wafa Al-Bueissa was born in 1973 in Libya, but now lives in Holland after her debut novel, Hunger has Other Faces (excerpted in Banipal 40) led to hate campaigns in Libya.

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Giuma Bukleb was born in Tripoli in 1952 and started publishing his short stories in Libya in 1976. Since 1988 he has lived and worked in London.

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Benjamin Burg is the author of the short story collections Camera, Leo, de vrouwenman (Leo, the Ladies Man) and the novel Redder in nood (The Life Saver).

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Peter Bush is an award-winning literary translator from Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese.

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Hisham Bustani was born in 1975 in Amman, Jordan.

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James Byrne James Byrne is a British poet, editor and translator who edited The Wolf magazine from 2002-2017. He has several poetry collections.

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Anthony Calderbank studied Arabic and Persian at Manchester University and taught Arabic in Cairo and at Salford University, UK.

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Luis Miguel Pérez Cañada

is Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Castilla-La Mancha and at the Toledo School of Translators, where he was director 2006-2017.

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Elspeth Carruthers has a BA in Arabic from the University of Cambridge and is currently studying for an MA in Arabic Literature at SOAS, London.

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Mary Ann Caws is Professor of English, French and Comparative Literature at the Graduate School of City University New York.

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Gregor Timothy Ceh regularly translates passages of contemporary Slovene literature. He worked in London for a while and now lives in Cyprus.

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Dan Cern

is an English teacher and a graduate of Bar Ilan University.

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Sam Cha is a translator of Korean literature.

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Rifat Chadirji is a celebrated Iraqi architect, visual artist and author.

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Fadhil Chalabi

was born in Baghdad in 1929. He was an oil economist, serving in the Iraqi oil Ministry.

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Paul Chaoul born in Beirut in 1942, is a poet, playwright, literary critic and foremost translator of French poetry and plays.

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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.

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Mehdi Charef was born in Algeria in 1952 and moved to France in 1964.

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Rachida el-Charni is an award-winning Tunisian author with two collections of short stories and one novel, published in 2011. Many of her stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines.

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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.

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Abdelkader Chaui was born in October 1950 in Bab Taza, Morocco.

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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.

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Dima al-Choukr (Alchukr)

is a Syrian literary critic and journalist

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Mohamed Choukri one of Morocco’s great contemporary writers, died November 2003 of cancer. He was 64 years old.

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Mahmoud Chreih

is a literary critic, philosopher and professor at American University of Beirut.

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Alexandra Chreiteh is the author of Always Coca-Cola. She is pursuing a PhD in comparative literature at Yale University.

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Christina Civantos

Christina Civantos is a professor of Hispanic and Arabic literary and cultural studies at the University of Miami.

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Clayton Clark is from Arkansas, USA. He began studying Arabic for his BA in Middle Eastern Studies, and has studied and worked in Jordan.

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Peter Clark is a writer and cultural consultant who lived in the Middle East for many years.

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Catherine Cobham

is Head of the Department of Arabic and Persian at the University of St Andrews. She has translated a number of contemporary Arab author.

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Ken Cockburn is a poet, poetry translator from German and an editor.

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.Jessica Cohen

.Jessica Cohen is an independent translator born in England, raised in Israel, and living in Denver. She translates contemporary Hebrew prose and other creative work.

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Howard Cohen

was born in May 1966 and grew up in north London in a traditional but secular Jewish family.

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Raphael Cohen

is a professional translator and lexicographer who studied Arabic and Hebrew at Oxford and the University of Chicago.

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Elliott Colla is Chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University, and a translator of several works of contemporary Arabic literature.

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Charlotte Collins is a literary translator from the German.

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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

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Alessandro Columbu is a PhD candidate and Arabic teacher at the University of Edinburgh.

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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.

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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.

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Tristan Cranfield London based literary translator

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Trino Cruz

is a bilingual writer and translator born in Gibraltar in 1960.

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Primoz Cucnik born in Ljubljana in 1971, has eight collections of poetry.

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Charbel Dagher is a Lebanese novelist, poet and critic of art.

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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.

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James Dalglish teaches English Literature and Creative Non-Fiction writing at Al-Ain University, UAE.

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Saleh al-Dames is a Tunisian fiction writer.

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Hassan Daoud is a novelist and journalist born in Beirut in 1950, where he lives and works.

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Brahim Dargouthi Is an extensively published Tunisian author.

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Faisal Darraj is a Palestinian literary critic who has lived between Damascus and Amman.

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Najwan Darwish is a poet from Jerusalem whose poems have been translated into more than ten languages. He is the literary advisor to the Palestine Festival for Literature (Palfest).

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Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) the great Palestinian poet, passed away on Saturday 9 August 2008, following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas.

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Shalom Darwish (Ali al-Ghabri 1913 – Haifa 1997)

was one of the most gifted writers of short fiction in Iraq in the 1940s and 1950s.

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Humphrey Davies (1947–12 November 2021)

has been twice the winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation (in 2006 and 2010 – the first and fifth years of the prize) and twice runner-up (in 2010 and 2012).

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Georgia de Chamberet

is an editor and translator with thirty years of experience in independent publishing.

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Erica Johnson Debeljak began to work as a writer and columnist after moving to Slovenia and learning the language. She has published three books in Slovenian, including Foreigner in the House of Natives.

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Thaer Deeb

Thaer Deeb is a Syrian writer and editor, and a prolific translator of cultural and philosophical works into Arabic, born in Latakia, Syria, in 1962. 

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Alaa al-Deeb (1939-2016) was an enormously influential Egyptian author and critic.

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Tim DeMay Tim DeMay is a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where he is pursuing a PhD in English.

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Katy Derbyshire is a London-born translator based in Berlin.

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Hanane Derkaoui is a Moroccan writer and translator who currently lives in the south of France. Her first collection of short stories, White Birds, was published in 1997 by Dar al-Boukili in Morocco.

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Lukman Derky was born in Derbassiya, Syria, in 1966. He was a member of Aleppo University’s literary circle in the 1980s.

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Zoe Dexter is currently pursuing her MA in Migration and Diaspora Studies.

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Nasser al-Dhaheri is an award-winning author, journalist and photographer, born in 1960 in Al-Ain, UAE.

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Saleh Diab was born in 1967 in Aleppo, Syria. He went to live in France in 2000.

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Mohammed Dib was a writer born in Tlemcen, Algeria.

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Mohammed Ali Shams Al-Din biodata coming soon.

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Muhi al-din Lazikani was born in Syria in 1951 and studied literature in Syria and Egypt.

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Osama Dinassouri (1960 – 4 January 2007) was born in 1960 in a small village in Kafr el Shaikh, Egypt. He published four collections of poetry before succumbing to kidney failure.

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Veronika Dintinjana is a Slovenian poet and translator, born in 1977.

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Rabia Djelti

is an Algerian novelist, poet and academic, currently a professor of contemporary literature in the Faculty of Arts and Languages, University of Algiers.

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David Doherty was born in London and raised in Scotland.

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Ali al-Domaini was born in 1948 in Saudi Arabia, and is a poet, novelist and activist for human rights.

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Jeong Do-sang is a Korean author, born in 1960. He made his debut with a short story The Story of 15-Room.

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Jan Dost

is a Syrian Kurdish poet, writer and translator, born in 1965 in Kobani, Syria.

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Ali Douagi (1909-1949) is regarded as founding father of the Tunisian short story.

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Brian Doyle has translated a wide range of academic and literary works from Dutch/Flemish into English as well as poetry and literary non-fiction.

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Roddy Doyle is an acclaimed novelist, dramatist and screenwriter, born in Dublin in 1958.

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Lutfiya al-Dulaimi

was born in Diyala, Iraq. She has published ten books of fiction, five plays and three books of essays.

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Eran Edry

Eran Edry is a Tel Aviv-born screen and stage translator, and children’s screenwriter.

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Ali Abdulameer Ejam is an Iraqi journalist, critic, TV presenter and writer.

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Fikri El Azzouzi is a Flemish-Moroccan author living in Belgium.

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Ounsi El Hage (1937–2014) was a pioneer of the prose poem and co-founder of the famous Arabic poetry magazine Shi’r, as well as translator into Arabic of major Surrealist French poets.

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Jonas Elbousty

is Director of Undergraduate Studies at Yale University, and of the Summer Study Abroad Program in Rabat, Morocco

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Kamal Elgizouli is a Sudanese poet, fiction writer and critic, also a lawyer, international law expert, and human rights activist.

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Laila Elhan has published three collections of poetry and in 2008 was awarded the President's Prize for young poets.

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Jana Elhassan is a Lebanese novelist and journalist, born in 1985.

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Abderrahim Elkhassar is a poet from Asfi, Morocco.

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Mona Elnamoury

is a Cairo-based Egyptian assistant professor at Tanta University, Faculty of Arts, English Department.

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Maysoon Elnigoumi is a Sudanese writer, living in Sydney, Australia.

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Amir Tag Elsir is a Sudanese author born in northern Sudan in 1960. He has published 14 novels (his first in 1988), biographies and poetry.

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Tarek Eltayeb was born in Cairo of Sudanese parents. He studied in Ain Shams University, Cairo, until 1981.

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Najlaa Osman Eltom is a Sudanese poet and writer based in Sweden.

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Sarah Enany

Sarah Enany is an award-winning literary translator, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Cairo University.

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Basima al-Enezi is a Kuwaiti author who published her first collection of short stories, Al-Ashya’ (Things), in 1998.

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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

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Stephan Enter (b. 1968) has a collection of short stories Winterhanden (Chilblained Hands) and three novels, with his first Lichtjaren (Light Years, 2004), nominated for the Libris Literature Prize.

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Deniz Erol is a New York-based writer.

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Abeer Esber

is a Syrian writer and filmmaker.

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Adel Esmat

is an Egyptian writer, born in 1959.

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Bothayna Al-Essa (Buthaina al-Issa)

is a Kuwaiti author and founder of Takween, a platform for creative writing, a publishing house and a bookshop.

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Ashur Etwebi (al-Twebi) is one of Libya’s best-known authors, born in 1952.

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Yuval Evri

is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies on the Marash and Ocuin Chair in Ottoman, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, USA.

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Ayane Ezaki Ayane Ezaki was born in Japan and raised in Singapore.

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Mansoura Ez-Eldin

is an Egyptian author and journalist and started publishing her short stories in the Arab press when she was just 21.

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Youssef Fadel is a novelist, playwright and screenwriter, born in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1949.

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Bushra el-Fadil is a Sudanese short-story writer who lives in exile in Saudi Arabia

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Ahmed 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.

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Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer and the curator of the 2018 SAFAR Film Festival.

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Hartmut Fähndrich

was born in Tübingen, Germany, in 1944, and in 1972 moved to Switzerland, where he still lives.

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Salah Faik was born in 1945 in Kirkuk, Iraq. He began publishing his poetry in 1964.

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Miled Faiza

is a Tunisian-American poet and translator.

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Huda Fakhreddine

is Assistant Professor of Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Jawdat Fakhreddine was born in 1953 in southern Lebanon. He has published seven collections of poetry, the first in 1979.

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Nassif Falak was born in 1954 in Iraq. He is a poet and novelist.

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Fadia Faqir is a Jordanian British novelist and teacher of creative writing.

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Noura Mohammad Faraj

is a Qatari author, and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Arabic Language at Carnegie Mellon University, Doha, Qatar.

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Ibrahim Farghali was born in September 1967 in Mansourah, Egypt and spent a good part of his childhood in Oman.

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Mohammed Ali Farhat is a Lebanese poet born in Beirut in 1945. He graduated from the Lebanese University and has an MA in Philosophy.

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Elias Farkouh

was a short story writer, a novelist and publisher, born in Amman, Jordan, in 1948. He died suddenly of a heart ache on 15 July 2020.

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Robert J Farley is a translator and doctoral student of comparative literature at UCLA, focusing on Arabic literature and gender studies.

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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.

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Fadhila el-Farouk was born in November 1967 in Arris, in the Batna Province of Algeria. She has published a collection of short stories and four novels.

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Abdulaziz Mohammed Majid Al-Farsi was born in Shinas in the Sultanate of Oman on August 27, 1976.

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Tamer Fathy is 25 years old and studying English literature at Alexandria University.

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Safaa Fathy is an Egyptian poet, documentary filmmaker, playwright, and essayist.

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Zeena Faulk

is an Iraqi-American literary translator, currently pursuing a PhD in Translation Studies at the University of Warwick, UK

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Jamal Fayez

is a Qatari novelist and short story writer.

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Ali Hussain al-Felkawi is a Kuwaiti author and poet.

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Laura Ferreri has a BA in interpreting and translation from Trieste University, Italy.

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Adam Fet'hi Is a Tunisian poet, translator and song-writer.

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Emad Fouad is a poet and journalist, born in Al-Farouniya village in the Egyptian Delta.

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Linda France

Linda France is a poet, tutor, editor and mentor, teaching Creative Writing at Newcastle University, based near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.

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Bassam K Frangieh

is a professor of Arabic language and literature at Claremont McKenna College, California.

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Jasmin B. Frelih was born in 1986 and is a student of comparative literature, literary theory and history at the University of Ljubljana. He has published short fiction in Slovenia's literary reviews Sodobnost and Literatura.

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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.

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Babnik Gabriela Gabriela Babnik was born in Göppingen, Germany. Her works include two novels and a radio play.

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Stella Gaitano is a writer, born in Khartoum in 1979 into a South Sudanese family.

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Rodaan al-Galidi was born in Iraq around 1970; his exact date of birth is unknown.

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Lorand Gaspar Lorand Gaspar is a traveller, a poet, surgeon, scientist, historian, photographer and translator. He is recognised as one of France’s most important contemporary poets. He lived and worked for many years in Jerusalem and Tunis and is Guest Writer in Banipal 46.

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Hamdy el-Gazzar was born on 1 October 1970, in Giza, Cairo. He has a degree from Cairo University in Philosophy (1996).

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Mariam al-Ghafli is an author whose two novels have been recently published.

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Zahir (Zaher) al-Ghafri

was born in 1956 in Oman. He is part of the avant-garde prose poetry movement in Oman.

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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.

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Reem Ghanayem is a poet, translator and a researcher in the fields of Arabic and English Literature. She was born and lives inside the Green Line in Palestine.

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Ali Ghandtschi Was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1969. He turned to photography in 1995.

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Nujoom al-Ghanem (Nujum al-Ghanim) is a poet from the United Arab Emirates. She has published seven collections of poetry.

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Hashem Gharaibeh is a novelist and short story writer and has published a number of books. He lives and works in Amman.

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Anwar al-Ghassani 1937 - 2009 Teacher, poet, fiction writer, translator and journalist

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Ismail Ghazali is a Moroccan novelist and short story writer, born in the Amazigh village of M'Rirt, Morocco, in 1977.

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Fayez Ghazi

is a Lebanese writer.

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Ghazi Gheblawi is a short story writer, poet and medical doctor, and also an award-winning blogger and podcaster.

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Mahmoud al-Ghitani is an Egyptian writer and journalist, living in Cairo.

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Gamal el-Ghitani (1945-2015) was one of Egypt’s leading novelists of the 20th & 21st century

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Mai Ghoussoub The sudden and untimely death of Mai Ghoussoub shocked the arts and literary worlds.

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Ferial Ghouzoul is Iraqi, living in Cairo, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University of Cairo.

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Mohammed Ghozzi was born in Kairouan, Tunisia, in 1949. Poet, critic and professor at Tunis University, he has published three collections of poems.

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Polona Glavan (b. 1974) is a Slovenian novelist, short story writer and translator from English.

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Giuseppe Goffredo is a poet and writer, born in Alberobello in Puglia, Italy, in 1956. He graduated in Philosophy.

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Sally Gomaa was born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. Her publications include an English translation of Amina Zaydan’s Red Wine (AUC Press, 2010).

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Camilo Gómez-Rivas

is currently Associate Professor of Mediterranean Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Nabil Naum Gorgy was born in Cairo and studied Civil Engineering at Cairo University.

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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.

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William Granara is Professor of Arabic at Harvard University. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

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Nathaniel Greenberg Nathaniel Greenberg is Assistant Professor of Arabic at George Mason University, USA.

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Nick Grigg Is a photographer based in Scotland

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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.

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Angel Guinda is recognised as “one of the most necessary and original poets in Spanish literature in recent decades”, with an "incorruptible voice".

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Eskander Habache was born in Beirut in 1963. He is a poet, and journalist with As-Safir newspaper.

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Hussein Habasch is a Syrian poet of Kurdish origin, living in Bonn, Germany.

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Huzama Habayeb

is a Palestinian author and journalist who was awarded the 2017 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for her novel Velvet.

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Emile Habiby

was born in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, in 1922. His novelThe Secret Life of Saeed, the Pessoptimist, is internationally renowned.

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Marilyn Hacker is the award-winning author of many collections of poems, including Desesperanto (W.W. Norton, 2003) and First Cities: Collected Early Poems 1960-1979 (also 2003).

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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.

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Qassim Haddad is a Bahraini poet, well known throughout the Arab world.

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Joumana Haddad was born in 1970 in Beirut, Lebanon, where she lives and works.

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Mayselun Hadi was born in 1954 in Baghdad. She graduated in Management and Economics from Baghdad University.

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Subhi Hadidi was born in Qamishle, Syria, 1951. A critic, editorialist, and translator, he writes extensively on contemporary Arab poetry.

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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.

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Rawi Hage is a Lebanese novelist, based in Canada, the author of three best-selling novels, Carnival (2012), Cockroach (2008) and De Niro’s Game (2006).

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Haidar Haidar was born in 1936 in the small village of Husain-al Bahr near Tartus in Syria.

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Bassam Hajjar (1955-2009)

With great sadness we report that Bassam Hajjar 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.

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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.

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Marzuq Halabi is a Palestinian writer, journalist and jurist who lives in Haifa. He writes about political philosophy, culture, literature and has an opinion column in the Lebanese newspaper “al-Hayat”.

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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.

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Oded Halahmy

(born in Baghdad, 1938) is a Babylonian Jew whose family fled Iraq in 1950, settling in Jaffa, Israel.

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Ghalib Halasa (1923–1989)

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.

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Kadhim al-Hallaq was born in Basra, Iraq, 1959. He qualified as an archivist in Baghdad, 1985.

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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.

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Janan Jassim Hallawi was born in old Basra city in 1956. He studied electric engineering.

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Turki al-Hamad is a well-known Saudi author of a number of books of fiction and essays, and a former university lecturer.

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Salah al-Hamdani was born in Iraq where he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime.

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Huda Hamed (al-Jahouri)

is an Omani writer and journalist and has published three collections of short stories and four novels.

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Khalida Hamid is an Iraqi researcher and bilingual translator from Baghdad. She has a BA and MA in Translation from Al-Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad.

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Hameady Hamood is an author and story-teller, born in Kuwait in 1973.

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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.

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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.

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Tony Hanania was born in Beirut in 1964. He was brought up in Lebanon and educated at Winchester and the Warburg Institute.

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Nathalie Handal is an award-winning poet, playwright, and writer. Her most recent poetry collection is "Love and Strange Horses".

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Hanoos Hanoos

is a painter, born in Kufa, Iraq, in 1958, who has lived in Madrid, Spain, since 1981, where he continues his creative work,  and presently teaches modern art at various academies in Madrid. 

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Yasmeen Hanoosh

was born in Basra in 1978, and is a bilingual Iraqi scholar, writer and translator who works across languages and genres.

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Becky Harrison

Becky Harrison is Events and Communications Officer at the Arab British Centre in London.

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Ann Harrison is Programme Director of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.

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Ibtihaj Al-Harthi is from the Sultanate of Oman. She is an illustrator who also does some literary translation.

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Mohamed Al-Harthy was born in al-Mudhayrib, Oman, in 1962.

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Michelle Hartman is an associate professor of Arabic and francophone literature at McGill University in Montreal.

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Salah Hasan was born in Babel, Iraq, in 1960. He studied theatre at the Academy of Fine Art, Baghdad, leaving Iraq in 1992.

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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.

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Maha Hassan was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1966 and since 1995 she has published five novels.

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Rosa Yassin Hassan is a Syrian novelist and writer from Damascus.

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Ammar Ali Hassan

is an Egyptian novelist, literary critic, journalist and a scholar of socio-politics.

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Hawad

Hawad is a Tuareg poet, born in 1950 in the Aïr region in what is today Niger.

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Mohamed Hayawi is an Iraqi journalist and author who now lives in the Netherlands

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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.

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Paula Haydar is Professor of Arabic at the University of Arkansas. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature, an M.F.A. degree in Literary Translation, and has translated several novels by contemporary Lebanese and Palestinian writers.

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Jalil Haydar (Haidar) is an Iraqi poet, born in Baghdad in 1945. He has published nine collections.

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Buland al-Haydari was born in north Iraq on September 26, 1926, moving to Baghdad as a boy.

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Ghenwa Hayek was born in Beirut, Lebanon.

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Renée Hayek was born in southern Lebanon and has published two collections of short stories and eight novels. She has been twice longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

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Ra Hee-duk made her literary debut in 1989 when she was named winner of the annual spring literary contest sponsored by the The joongang Ilbo

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Sheikha Helawy

is a Palestinian writer, teacher and educator. Her short story collection Al-Talabiyya C345 (2018, Order No C345) won the 2019 Almutaqa Prize.

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Walid Hermiz

Walid Hermiz is an Iraqi poet, born in Basra in 1951. He has published seven collections of poetry.

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Amira Hess

is a poet, born in Baghdad in 1943. Her experience of moving to Israel from Iraq in 1951, and initially living in the Yokneam migrant transit camp, would later become a fundamental, defining influence on her poetry.

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Sherif Hetata is a physician, political activist and novelist, born in Egypt in 1923.

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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.

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Bensalem Himmich was born in Meknès, Morocco in 1949. He has published eleven novels, four collections of poetry, and a number of volumes of essays and literary criticism.

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Norbert Hirschhorn Norbert Hirschhorn is both a poet and a doctor specializing in international public health. He divides his time between London and Beirut.

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Jack Hirschman is a prolific American poet, painter, translator and social activist.

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Salah Hithani was born in Karbala, Iraq, and is a poet and academic.

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Ala Hlehel was born in Jesh, Galilee, in 1974.

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Thomas Hoegh is the founder and CEO of Arts Alliance Media (sister company of Arts Alliance Ventures).

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Alice Holttum

is a part-time freelance translator and translation proofreader.

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Uri Horesh

is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature Instruction at Achva Academic College, having previously taught at academic institutions in the US and the UK.

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Khaled Hroub is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Arab Media Studies at Northwestern University, Qatar, and a senior research fellow at the Centre of Islamic Studies of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge.

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Nur al-Huda Mohammad Nur al-Huda founded Azza Publishing in 1991, and has published over 500 titles in the fields of philosophy, literature and the sciences.

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Michael Hulse is a poet and professor of poetry and comparative literature at the University of Warwick.

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Yair Huri is a senior lecturer of Arabic literature and the director of the Program of Arabic language & Literature at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.

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Sawad Hussain

is a British Arabic-English translator and litterateur.

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Mohammed Afif al-Hussaini was born in Amouda, Syria, in 1957, into a Kurdish family.

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Aamer Hussein is well-known author and has published four collections of short stories.

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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.

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Hadiyya (Hadiya) Hussein

Hadiya Hussein is an Iraqi writer from Baghdad. Since her first collection of short stories in 1993, she has published four more, and six novels.

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Haitham Hussein Haitham Hussein is a Syrian Kurdish novelist and literary critic from Hasaka.

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William Maynard Hutchins

has translated many contemporary Arabic novels including Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street, and Cairo Modern by Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz (Anchor Books). He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

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Michele Hutchison translates literary fiction and nonfiction, poetry, graphic novels, and children’s books from Dutch to English.

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Michele Hutchison (b. UK, 1972) worked as an editor in the publishing industry before turning to translation.

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Heind R. Ibrahim is an Iraqi poet who has lived in USA.

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Ibrahim Mohammed Ibrahim is a prize-winning poet, born in Dubai. He also works with a number of cultural organisations in the UAE.

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Abdullah Ibrahim Abdullah Ibrahim's nine-volume Encyclopedia of Arabic Narrative published in 2016 (in Arabic) represents a culmination of nearly thirty years of research.

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Mayada Ibrahim

is an editor, translator and writer from Sudan, who works in Arabic and English.

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Sonallah Ibrahim is an Eqyptian novelist and short story writer.

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Suhail Idriss Lebanese intellectual, writer, novelist, translator, lexicographer and publisher Suhail Idriss passed away in Beirut on Tuesday February 19, 2008.

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Julia Ihnatowicz is a freelance translator of Arabic.

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Tareq Imam

is an Egyptian novelist and journalist, born in 1977.

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Kim In-sook made her literary debut at the age of 20 when her short story was named winner of the annual spring literary competition sponsored by The Chosun Ilbo.

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Hamid al-Iqabi Hamid al-Iqabi (1956-2017) was an Iraqi author of poetry, novels and short stories

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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.

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John Irons (born 1942) studied French, German and Dutch at Cambridge University before specialising in Dutch poetry for his PhD.

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Abed Ismael was born in Lattakia, Syria in 1963 and is a poet and translator, teaching American literature at Damascus University.

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Ismail Fahd Ismail (1940–2018)

is considered the spiritual father of the Kuwaiti novel and, from 1965 to 2013, has published 23 novels, 2 collections of short stories and 3 plays.

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Alia al-Ismaily is an amateur writer of short stories and poems.

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Tami Israeli

is the head of the department of literature and Children’s Literature at the Levinsky College of Education, Tel Aviv.

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Ibrahim Issa is a well-known award-winning Egyptian journalist, born in 1965, and is the author of five novels.

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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.

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Abid Jaafar was born in Baghdad in 1954. he studied Arabic literature in Baghdad University.

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Rabee Jaber is a profilic and award-winning novelist.

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Yehia Jaber Biodata coming soon

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Inaya Jaber is a Lebanese poet and has published six collections of poetry.

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Amal al-Jabouri was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1967. She has a degree in English Literature from Baghdad University.

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Kim Jaeyong is a Korean critic. He teaches modern Korean Literature at Wonkwang University, Korea.

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Jure Jakob was born in 1977 in Celje. He has three collections of poetry, and some works translated into English, Italian, German, Polish, Serbian and Hungarian and forthcoming in Croatian.

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Muhayman Jamil was born in Baghdad in 1956 and has lived and worked in the UK since the early 1990s.

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Hatif Janabi

(b. 1952) is an Iraqi poet, translator and author who has lived in Warsaw, Poland since 1976.

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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.

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Koutaiba al-Janabi is a photographer, film-maker and screenwriter, born in Baghdad.

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Clara Janès is from Barcelona, Spain, and is regarded as one of Spain’s best contemporary love poets.

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Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen

Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen is a full-time Dutch-English language specialist.

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Elisabeth Jaquette

is a writer and translator. Her translations of Arabic literature have been published in Words Without Borders, Banipal, Asymptote, Jadaliyya, and Portal 9.

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Nouri al-Jarrah

is a well-known Syrian poet, born in Damascus in 1956.

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Maher Jarrar

Maher Jarrar is a Professor at the American University of Beirut, both with the Civilization Sequence Program and the Department of Arabic.

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Sara al-Jarwan , a former soldier in the UAE army, has written numerous novels and short stories, which have brought her increasing recognition in the wider Arab world.

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Abdel Aziz Jassim

Abdel Aziz Jassim was born in Ras al-Khaimah, UAE, in 1962 and has been publishing poetry and literary articles since the 1980s.

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Ghassan Jawad is a poet and journalist from southern Lebanon. He lives and works in Beirut.

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Salma Khadra Jayyusi was born in Palestine in 1928, of a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother.

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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.

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Kadhim Jihad Hassan was born in southern Iraq in 1955. He has lived in Paris since 1976.

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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.

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Azher Jirjees

is an Iraqi writer and novelist, born in Baghdad in 1973, now settled in Norway.

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Alice Johnson is a freelance journalist and novelist based in Dubai.

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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.

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Do Jong-hwan was born in 1954 and is among the foremost poets in Korea, his works depicting the struggle of common people in a divided country.

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Pierre Joris has published some 50 books of poems, essays, texts & translations. Until his retirement he taught poetry and theory at New York University, Albany.

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Lawrence Joseph Lawrence Joseph is the author of five books of poems. Originally from Detroit, he has lived in New York City since 1981.

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Fady Joudah is a Palestinian American poet, a practising physician and poetry translator.

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Abdelkarim Jouiti was born in 1962 in Beni Mellal, Morocco. He is a writer, researcher and translator and author of five novels.

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Dhia Jubaili is an award-winning Iraqi novelist and short story writer, born in Basra, Iraq, where he still lives.

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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.

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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.

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Rula Jurdi

is a poet and novelist, and Professor of Islamic History at McGill University, Montreal.

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Barbara Jursa was born in 1986 in Maribor. Her current research topic concerns ecocriticism. She has also published her poetry in several Slovenian literary magazines.

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Aisha al-Kaabi is a short story writer, artist and translator, born in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi. She has recently won the Emirati Woman Award in Literature and Art for her latest book.

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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.

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Inaam Kachachi

was born in Baghdad in 1952, and studied journalism, working in the Iraqi press and radio.

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Samir Kacimi was born in 1974 in Algiers. His novel A Great Day to Die was longlisted for the IPAF in 2009.

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Fawaz Kaderi is a poet from Deir Zour in Syria.

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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.

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Mohja Kahf was born in Damascus, Syria, and emigrated to the US as a child with her parents, both university students.

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Isra'a Kalash is a Palestinian writer. Her collection Khata’ matba‘i (Misprint) won the A. M. Qattan Foundation Award in 2010.

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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.

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Peter Kalu Peter Kalu is a writer and editor, based in Manchester, UK. He has nine published novels, ranging from science fiction to romantic comedy, and a number of radio and theatre plays.

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Ameer Jafar Kamal

Ameer Jafar Kamal is a translator and aspiring writer living in Paris.

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Reem al-Kamali

is a novelist, writer and researcher from the UAE, born in 1972. 

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Ezzat El-Kamhawi

Is a novelist and journalist and has published six novels and two short story collections.

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Volker Kaminski is a German novelist and writer, living in Berlin.

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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.

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Abdel Ghani Karamallah is a Sudanese writer from the Blue Nile area south of Khartoum.

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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.

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Mona Kareem was born in 1987 in Kuwait.

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Fawzi Karim was born in Baghdad in 1945.

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Wayne Karlin is an American author, editor, and teacher born in Los Angeles. He is best known for his books about the aftermath of the Vietnam War

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Tarek al-Karmy is a Palestinian writer and musician. He has participated in various local and international music festivals and has written several books of poetry.

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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).

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Ali al-Kasimi is an Iraqi author and academic who lives in Morocco.

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Ulla Kasten was born in Denmark in 1945. She studied in Greece and Turkey.

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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.

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Ahmad Kattouah was born in Jeddah in 1965. He has published his poetry in several literary and arts magazines.

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Samira Kawar

is an experienced energy journalist and literary translator.

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Su'ad al-Kawari is a poet from Qatar, where she lives and works. She has published two collections of poetry.

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Sattar Kawoosh

is a painter from Iraq, settled in the Netherlands since 2001. He has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions around the world, including in Iraq, Jordan, Italy, United States, Ukraine, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, Germany, France and The Netherlands.

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Judith Kazantzis (1940–2018)

was a poet, novelist, translator, painter and printmaker.

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Ziad Khaddash was born in 1964 and works as a teacher and journalist.

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Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941–1995) is considered one of the most innovative of francophone Moroccan writers of the 20th century, sometimes called the Dylan Thomas of Morocco.

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Abdo Khal was born in 1962 in Saudi Arabia. He has a degree in Political Science from King Abdel Aziz University, Jeddah.

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Ebrahim al-Khaldi was born in Kuwait in 1971. He has published two collections of poetry and a book of essays.

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Alaa Khaled Alaa Khaled is a well-known poet, novelist and literary editor from Alexandria, Egypt.

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Bushra Khalfan

is an Omani short story writer and novelist, born in 1969.

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Yousef Khalifa is an author, photographer and weekly columnist for the newspaper al-Kuwaitiyya.

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Khaled Khalifa (1964–2023)

was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1964 and had a BA in Law from Aleppo University. He has written many successful novels, as well as screenplays for TV series and cinema.

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Moustafa Khalife is a Syrian writer who studied law.

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Suleiman al-Khalifi is a poet, writer and critic born in Kuwait in 1946.

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Dhabiya Khamis is an author, translator and diplomat with over 45 published works, including 18 poetry collections, 4 works of fiction, 9 volumes of essays and 12 translated works.

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Edwar al-Kharrat is from Alexandria, Egypt.

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Mohammad Khashan was born in Suhmata, Palestine, in 1934

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Basma el-Khatib was born in 30 November 1975 in Lebanon.

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Said Khatibi

Said Khatibi was born in 1984 in Bou Saada, Algeria. He has worked as a cultural journalist since 2006, writing in both Arabic and French.

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Walid Khazendar is a Palestinian poet born in Gaza in 1950. He has published three collections of poetry.

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Jonas Hassen Khemiri born in Sweden in 1978 to a Tunisian father and Swedish mother, is an award-winning author.

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Yasmine Khlat was born in Ismailia, Egypt, into a Lebanese French-speaking family.

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Idriss (Driss) el-Khouri (1939–14 February 2022)

was a well-known Moroccan novelist and short story writer, born in Casablanca.

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Elias Khoury (1948 – 15 September 2024)

Elias Khoury was a renowned public intellectual, literary critic, journalist, novelist, playwright, and academic.

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Venus Khoury-Ghata was born in Lebanon, in Besherri, the village of Gibran Kahlil Gibran.

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Adel Khozam

is a poet, journalist, editor and broadcaster from the Emirates, born in 1963.

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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.

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Bilal Khubbayz is a poet and journalist, and writes for An-Nahar weekly cultural supplement.

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Nadia al-Khudari was born in Karkh, Baghdad. She has a diploma in economic systems administration and a degree in programming.

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Muhammad Khudayyir was born in Basra, Iraq, in 1942 where he still lives.

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Omar el-Kiddi (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.

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Abdelfattah Kilito

Abdelfattah Kilito is a prominent Moroccan writer and literary critic, born in 1949.

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Ken Kincaid is an editor, writer and translator who lives and works in Paris.

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James Kirkup (23 April 1918 – 10 May 2009) was 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.

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Khalid Kishtainy was born in Baghdad, and has lived in the UK since shortly after the 1958 coup in Iraq.

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Raouf Kobeissi is a Lebanese Journalist and writer.

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Ben Koerber is an assistant professor of Arabic at Rutgers University, USA.

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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. He has authored over 50 novels, short stories, poems and aphorisms, all inspired by the desert.

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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.

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Park Kyung-ri is a translator of Korean literature.

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Charles La Shure is a translator of Korean literature.

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Abdellatif Laâbi was born in 1942 in Fes, Morocco. He is a poet, essayist, playwright and author of children’s books.

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Latifa Labsir was born in Casablanca in 1965. Since 2003 she has published three collections of short stories in Arabic, Raghba Faqat (Just a Desire, 2003), Dafa’ir (Braids, 2006) and Akhafu min . . . (I’m Afraid of . . ., 2010.

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Abdelrahim Lahbibi Abdelrahim Lahbibi is a Moroccan novelist, born in Safi, Morocco in 1950.

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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.

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Faisal Laibi was born in Basra, Iraq, in 1947.

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Feri Lainscek born in 1959 in the Slovenian village of Dolenci, is a prolific writer, playwright, and screenwriter of more than 100 works.

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Feryel Lakhdar

is a Tunisian artist, her works including frescoes, sculptures, designs for furniture items and porcelain tableware as well as her paintings.

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Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States.

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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.

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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.

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Judith Landry is a translator of French and Italian.

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Waciny Laredj

was born in 1954 in Sidi Boujnan, Algeria, is a well-known novelist.

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Abdallah Laroui was born in Morocco in 1933.

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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.

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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".

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Luke Leafgren

is a translator of modern Arabic fiction and an Arabic language teacher.

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Thomas Lehr is a prize-winning novelist. He lives in Berlin.

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Vesna Lemaic (b. 1981) lives in Ljubljana. Her debut book of short stories Popularne zgodbe (Popular Stories) in 2008 won three awards.

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Srpko Lestaric is a translator of Arabic into Serbo-Croat.

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Lital Levy

is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Princeton University, USA.

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Yang Lian is one of the founders of the 'Misty' school of contemporary Chinese poetry. His poems became well-known and influential inside and outside of China during the 1980s.

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Graham Liddell

Graham Liddell is a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of Michigan, where he studies contemporary refugee narratives in Arabic and Persian.

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Andrew C Long teaches in the Department of Cultural Studies at the Claremont Graduate University.

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Mohsine Loukili

is a Moroccan writer, born in Taza, Morocco, 1978.

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Ramona Lupu is a Romanian translator born in 1979.

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Khalid al-Maaly was born in al-Samawa, Iraq, in 1956. He is a poet, translator and publisher.

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Mohammed Al-Maazuz

is a Moroccan writer and researcher, born in 1959. His novel What Sin Caused her to Die? was shortlisted for the IPAF 2019.

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Shukri al-Mabkhout was born in Tunis in 1962.

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Rachida Madani was born in Tangiers, in 1951, where she lives and works as a teacher of French.

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Becki Maddock

is a translator and researcher, living in London.

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Raba'i al-Madhoun was born in Ashkilon, Gaza. He studied history at Alexandria University, Egypt, and in 1970 was deported to Jordan because of his political activities.

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Ahmed el-Madini

is a Moroccan writer, born in 1947

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Perihan Magden is a Turkish journalist, novelist and poet.

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Nashwan Ali al-Maghafi was born in 1976 and has been running the Yemen Book Shop since he was 19 years old.

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Azza Kamil al-Maghour is a lawyer and short story writer from Libya, with three collections of short stories.

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Mohammad al-Maghut poet, playwright and columnist, was born in al-Salamiyaa of Syria in 1934.

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Naguib Mahfouz was born in the Gamaliya suburb of Cairo, and began writing when he was seventeen.

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Jamal Mahjoub is an award winning writer of mixed British/Sudanese heritage, born in London in 1960, and raised in Khartoum.

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Haydar Mahmoud is the Jordanian Minister of Culture.

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Fatima Mahmoud is a Libyan poet, writer and journalist.

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Abdelrashid Mahmoudi is an Egyptian short-story writer, poet, critic, translator, who worked for UNESCO for 20 years.

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Lisa Suhair Majaj is a Palestinian-American. She grew up in Jordan, studied in Lebanon and the USA and lives in Cyprus.

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Abdel Rahman al-Majedi was born in Baghdad in 1965. He graduated from Faculty of Languages, Baghdad University, in 1989.

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Lamia Makaddam was born in 1971 in Sousse, Tunisia.

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Jason Makansi

is author of the novel The Moment Before (2017) and numerous short stories.

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Issa Makhlouf is a Lebanese writer and poet who lives in Paris.

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Marwan Makhoul is a Palestinian author. In 2009 he won the prize of best playwright in The Acre Theatre Festival. Selections from his poetry have been translated into several languages.

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Mohamed Makhzangi was born in 1950 in the Delta of Egypt.

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Layla al-Maleh (Almaleh) Is associate professor of English literature at Kuwait University and director of the Comparative Literature Graduate program.

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Driss Maliani was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1945.

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Wafa Malih was born on 21 July 1975 in Bouzkarn, Morocco.

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Ahmad Al-Malik is a Sudanese novelist and storyteller.

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Alia Mamdouh

is an Iraqi writer and novelist, born in 1944.

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Rania Mamoun is a writer and journalist from Wad Medani in east central Sudan.

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Samira al-Mana was born in Basra, Iraq, and studied Arabic Language at Baghdad University.

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Kahtan Mahboub Mandwee

is a novelist, essayist, translator, and professor of world literature.

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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.

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The Mani Brothers

were poets Rabbi Suleiman Mani and Rabbi Abraham Baruch Mani, sons of Rabbi Eliyahu Mani, who was born in Iraq in 1818 and studied under Iraqi Jews’ then-Chief Rabbi, the great Torah scholar ‘Hakham’ Abdallah Somekh.

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Mansour Mansour is an Iraqi artist, based in Germany since 1987. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Art, Baghdad, the Academy of Art, Perugia, and University of the Arts, Berlin.

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Abdel Aziz al-Maqalih (1937–2022)

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.

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Trinidad Ruiz Marcellan is a well-known Spanish poetry publisher.

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Leila Marouane was born in 1960 in Algeria. She studied French literature at the University of Algiers and the University of Paris VIII.

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Ruth Martin is a translator of German and teaches at the University of Kent.

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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.

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Soheir el-Masadfa is an Egyptian poet, novelist, translator and scholar, and has a PhD in Philosophy from Moscow University.

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Herbert Mason (1932-17) was Emeritus Professor and the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of History and Religious Thought at Boston University.

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Khaled al-Masri is a regular translator for Banipal.

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Monzer Masri is a poet and painter from Lattakia, Syria where he still lives.

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Maram al-Massri (al-Masri) is from Lattakia in Syria, now settled in Paris.

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Gladys Matar was born in Lattakia in 1962.

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Hisham Matar was born in New York City in 1970 into a Libyan family, and has lived in Tripoli, Cairo, and London. He has two novels, the first "In the Country of Men" being shortlisted for the 2006 UK Booker Prize.

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Khaled Mattawa

"is a cultural ambassador and poet-translator of Arabic poetry giving voice to a vast literature largely unknown in the Western hemisphere. In masterful translations that evoke the rhythm and cadence of Arabic, he renders the beauty and meaning of the poems accessible to an English reader," announces the MacArthur Foundation, in awarding him a Fellowship in September 2014.

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Rosie Maxton

has a BA from St Andrews University in Arabic and Medieval History.

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Mohammad Mazloom was born in Baghdad in 1963.

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Fatima al-Mazrouei writes short stories, poetry and plays. Since 2003 she has published four collections of short stories, a play and a novel.

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Mohammed al-Mazrouei has published five volumes of poetry and one of short stories. He was born in Egypt in 1962, and lives in Abu Dhabi.

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Gretchen McCullough

Gretchen McCullough is an American writer and translator, raised in Harlingen, Texas, based in Cairo, Egypt.

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Karen McNeil

is an Arabic-to-English translator.

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Rachel McNicholl is a freelance editor and translator based in Dublin.

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Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946-6 November 2014) was an internationally renowned and prolific writer, poet, novelist and intellectual.

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D H Melhem was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants.

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May Menassa (1939–2019)

was a pioneering journalist and highly regarded novelist and critic, born in Beirut.

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Maher Menzalji Biodata coming soon

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Nada Menzalji is a poet from Lattakia, Syria.

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Bassem al-Meraiby was born in Iraq in 1960. He studied acting and theatre direction in Baghdad.

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Iman Mersal

is an Egyptian poet, writer, academic and translator.

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Mo Mesrati is a young writer from Tripoli, Libya, living in the UK.

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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 . . .

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Mohamed Metwalli was born in Cairo in 1970. He has a BA in English Literature from Cairo University, 1992.

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Mohammed El-Mezdioui was born in Jerrada, Morocco, in 1964.

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Moncef Mezghanni Tunisian performance poet and children's writer.

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Mansour M'henni Is a Tunisian poet, journalist and editor.

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Sami Michael

was born Saleh Kemal Menashe Eliahu to a Jewish family in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1926.

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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).

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Murad Mikhail (1906–1986)

Murad Mikhail was an Iraqi-Jewish poet who pioneered the development of prose poetry.

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Stephan Milich

is a lecturer at the Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Köln, Germany.

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Hanna Mina (1924–2018)

(9 March 1924 – 21 August 2018) was one of the foremost novelists of the Arab world, renowned for his depiction of the social tensions and hard realities of life in modern Syria, as well as the lives of sailors and the sea.

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Jeon Miseli is a translator of Korean literature.

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Robin Moger

is a translator of contemporary Arabic fiction currently living in Cape Town, South Africa.

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Razan Naim Moghrabi is a short story writer and novelist from Libya. She graduated in accountancy, and since 2000 has published nine works

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Youssef al-Mohaimeed was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1964. He is a poet and writer.

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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.

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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.

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Aziz Mohammed

is a Saudi writer, born in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in 1987.

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Nacira Mohammedi is an Algerian poet, journalist and radio broadcaster on cultural affairs. She publishes her poetry in newspapers and has two collections.

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Adnan Mohsen was born in 1955 in Baghdad, Iraq, in the working class district of Al-Kasrah, on the banks of the Tigris.

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Salah el-Moncef was born in Kuwait in 1962, and presently lives between France and Germany, teaching American culture at Nantes Univeristy.

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Peter Money , an American writer, has been publishing since 1985. In the late 1980s, his mentor was the legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

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Fleur Montanaro was born in Malta. She is the administrator for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

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Hana Morgenstern

Hana Morgenstern is a scholar, writer and translator of Middle Eastern literatures.

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Edward Morin is an American poet, translator, and song writer. His poems and his co-translations of contemporary Greek, Chinese, and Arabic poetry have appeared in many literary magazines.

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Ahmed Morsi

is a poet and artist, born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1930. From early on, he became a part of Alexandria’s literary and artistic society and by his early twenties was showing his works in group exhibitions.

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Ali Mosbah was born in 1953 in Zaghwan, Tunisia. He studied social sciences at the Sorbonne, Paris, and Philosophy and Social Sciences in Berlin.

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Hassouna Mosbahi

was born in 1950 in Kairouan, Tunisia, and is a writer, literary critic and freelance journalist in German newspapers.

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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.

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Ghada Mourad Ghada Mourad is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature and a Schaeffer fellow in literary translation at the university of California, Irvine.

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Ahmed Mourad is a photographer, graphic designer and the author of mystery-suspense novels.

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Michel Moushabeck founded Interlink in 1987 with the help of his former wife Ruth shortly after he graduated from New York University.

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Amel Moussa

Amel Moussa was born in Tunisia in 1971. She is a poet and journalist.

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Sabri Moussa was born in 1932 in Dumiyat, Egypt, and lives in Cairo.

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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.

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Hussain al-Mozany (1954-2016) is a writer and journalist, born in al-Amarah, Iraq, in 1954.

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Mohammed Eissa al-Mu'adab

Mohammed Eissa al-Mu’adab is a Tunisian novelist and short story writer, born in 1966.

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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.

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Ebtisam al-Mualla is an author and translator, born in Sharjah in 1969.

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Khulood Al-Mu'alla won the Buland Al-Haidari Award for Young Arab Poets, the first young Gulf poet to do so.

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Mohamed al-Mubarak

Mohamed al-Mubarak is a literary translator and writer from Bahrain.

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Wassat Mubarak Biodata coming soon

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Suneela Mubayi is a translator. She has translated poems and short stories from young and upcoming Arab writers which have been published in Banipal and elsewhere.

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Saadiah Mufarreh is a poet and critic, and works as arts editor of Al-Qabas daily newspaper in Kuwait.

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Bachir Mufti was born in 1969 in Algiers and started writing in the mid-1980s.

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Ibrahim Muhawi is a Palestinian social scientist, linguist and literary translator, translating most notably Mahmoud Darwish’s Memory for Forgetfulness.

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Fatima al-Muhsin 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.

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Ahmed Al-Mulla is a Saudi poet, playwright and filmmaker.

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Maryam al-Mulla (Baghdad 1927 – 2013)

is an Iraqi Jewish poet and short story writer.

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Ibrahim al-Mullah born in Sharjah in 1966, has published two collections of poetry.

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Matthias Munsch Matthias Munsch is a journalist and news photographer living in Marburg,Germany.

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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.

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Mohammed al-Murr has published over 15 volumes of short stories, and is currently deputy chair of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.

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Akram Musallam published his first novel Hawajis al-Iskandar (Alexander’s Obsessions) in 2003. His second novel (The Tale of the Scorpion that Dripped with Sweat) was published by Dar al-Adaab in Beirut in 2008 after winning the A. M. Qattan Foundation Award and has been translated into French and Italian, and excerpted in Banipal 45.

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Muhsin al-Musawi

is a literary critic and Professor of Classical and Modern Arabic Literature, Comparative and Cultural Studies at Columbia University.

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Shada Mustafa

Shada Mustafa is a Palestinian writer  whose debut novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the Young Author category.

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Najim A Mustafa was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1929, the grandson of Khadija.

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Shakir Mustafa is presently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures at Boston University, USA.

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Mohammed Mustagab was from the village of Dayrut in Upper Egypt.

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Nadia Naami

Nadia Naami is a lecturer of French and Arabic at the University of Miami.

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Haneen Naamneh She is a Palestinian writer and lawyer. She has published several articles and studies in different Arabic literary magazines.

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Basem el-Nabres is a Palestinian writer who currently lives in Barcelona. He has published seven collections of poetry and a book about last Gaza War.

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Hawra al-Nadawi was born in Azamiyah, Baghdad, in August 1984. After four years writing on a daily basis, her first novel, Under the Copenhagen Sky, was published.

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Suhail Sami Nader is from Iraqi and is 65 years of age. Al-Tell is his first novel.

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Karima Nadir began writing poetry at the age of 14 and started translating a year later.

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Hadas Shabat Nadir

is the founder and manager of the Jewish-Arab Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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André Naffis-Sahely is a poet and translator of poetry and fiction from French and Italian.

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V.S. Naipaul was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2009. He was knighted in 1989 and in 1993 was awarded the David Cohen lifetime achievement prize.

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Khaled Najar (al-Najar) was born in Tunis in 1949 and has travelled widely.

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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.

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Hassan Najmi

was born in 1060 in Ben Ahmed, Morocco. He is a well-known poet, writer and journalist.

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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.

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Aroussia Naluti was born in 1950 in Jerba, Tunisia.

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Fatma Naoot is a poet and translator.

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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.

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Tamara Naser is a Palestinian writer who was born in Toronto and raised in Galilee. She is currently studying Film Studies and English Literature at the University of Tel Aviv.

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Buthaina al-Nasiri is an Iraqi writer presently living in Cairo.

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Ramsey Nasr was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1974, into a Palestinian-Dutch family. Voted Poet Laureate of the Netherlands in 2009, he is also a well-respected film and theatre actor as well as an author of essays, drama and journalistic pieces.

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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.

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Ibrahim Nasrallah

was born in Amman, Jordan, in 1954, and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp. He worked in journalism from 1978 to 1996.

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Nashwa Nasreldin

is a British Egyptian writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature into English, born in Kuwait.

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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.

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Amjad Nasser, 1955 – 2019

is recognised as a major contributor to the contemporary Arab poetry and literary scene.

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Nassif al-Nasseri was born in Nasiryah in Iraq in 1960. He has been publishing his poetry since the mid-1980s.

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Khalid Al-Nassrallah

is a Kuwaiti writer and novelist, born in 1987.

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Hikmat Nawayseh Biodata coming soon

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Amal Nawwar is a Lebanese poet and translator, who was born in Kuwait in 1964, and grew up in Sidon, Lebanon.

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Hamed el-Nazir is a writer and journalist, born in Sudan in 1975.

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Mohamed Nedali is a high school teacher of French and the author of six novels.

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Samira Negrouche is an Algerian poet and author who writes in French and translates Arabic poetry. She has participated in interdisciplinary projects involving drama, video, photography and plastic arts.

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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.

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Khalil al-Neimi was born in Badiya al-Sham [Syrian desert] in 1945.

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Marthe Nelissen is pursuing a Masters degree?in Arabic Literature at SOAS, London.

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Daniel Newman was born in 1963.

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Salah Niazi was born 1935 in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and has lived in Britain since 1963.

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Aldo Nicosia

is a teacher of Arabic language and literature at the University of Bari, Italy.

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Mostafa Nissabouri was born in 1943 in Casablanca, Morocco, and is a poet and short story writer.

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Bernard Noël is an internationally renowned poet and essayist, publishing more than 60 titles.

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Shakir Noori is a novelist and a journalist.

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Lulu Norman is a translator and writer, working mainly from French and Spanish with a particular interest in North African literature.

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Golala Nouri was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1969.

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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.

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Amira Nowaira is Professor of English Literature at Alexandria University.

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Ahmad el-Nsour is a poet from Jordan. His poems were published in several magazines and he has two collections.

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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.

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Ahmad Nuaimi was born in Irbid, Jordan, in 1968.

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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 . . .

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Ciaran O’Driscoll was born in Co. Kilkenny and lives in Limerick. He has published eight books of poetry including Moving On, Still There: New and Selected Poems and more recently, Surreal Man.

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Muhammad Obaid Ghubash was born in Dubai in 1950.

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Margaret Obank

is the co-founder and publisher of Banipal Magazine of Modern Arab Literature in English translation

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Nazum al-Obeidi was born in Baghdad in 1964. He has been a member of the Iraqi Writers’ Union since 1995.

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Abigail O'Brien is an artist who focuses on oil painting and ink drawings.

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Haggag Hassan Oddoul was born in Alexandria in 1944 into a family from the Nubian region of south Egypt.

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Charis Olszok (née Bredin)

is a Lecturer in Modern Arabic Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge.

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Jamila Omairah

Jamila Omairah is a Jordanian writer, with six published collections of short stories, and one novel.

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Rasha Omran was born in Tartus, Syria, in 1964.

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Mohamed-Salah Omri is Lecturer in Modern Arabic Literature and Tutorial Fellow at St. John’s College, University of Oxford.

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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.

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Brian O'Rourke has pursued careers in law and diplomatic service.

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Kevin O'Rourke is a translator and has published more than twenty books of Korean literature in translation.

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Rabia'a al-Ossaimi was born in 1975 in Sana’a, Yemen, where she still lives. She has one poetry collection.

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Robin Ostle is an Emeritus Research Fellow at St John’s College, University of Oxford, where the principal focus of his current research is on Literature and the Fine Arts in Egypt in the 20th century.

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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.

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Laila al-Othman was born in 1943 into a prominent Kuwaiti family.

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Abla Oudeh

Abla Oudeh is a lecturer in Arabic studies at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, teaching Arabic language and translation, and organises the Institute’s annual Alexandria Poetry Recitation Prize.

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Moncef Ouhaibi

is a award-winning poet from Tunisia, with numerous collections in Arabic and French.,

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Laila al-Ouhaydib is a Saudi short-story writer and has published one collection. She lives in Riyadh

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Saghir Ouled Ahmed (1955-2016) A forthright and progressive poet of Tunisia who committed himself to satirising authoritarianism and religious extremism through poetry.

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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.

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Ruth Padel

is an award-winning British poet, Professor of Poetry at King’s College, London, with close links to Greece, music and conservation.

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Simon Pare translates literature, plays and for the cinema from German and French.

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John Peate is a translator, university teacher, academic researcher and language consultant based in the UK.

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Haviva Pedaya

is a poet, novelist and academic, born in Jerusalem in 1957 into an Iraqi Jewish family.

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Ana Pepelnik was born 1979 in Ljubljana. She translates (mostly) poetry from (mostly) American literature.

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Katja Perat was born in 1988 in Ljubljana. Since 2007, her poetry has appeared in the literary magazine Literatura and in Dignimo pero/Dvignimo pero, a bilingual collection of prose and poetry by young writers from Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Farnaz Perry

is a lecturer in Arabic language and culture.

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Stephanie Petit

studied Linguistics at SOAS University of London.

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Christina Phillips

Christina Phillips is a senior lecturer in Arabic Literature and Media at the University of Exeter, teaching Arabic literature, translation and literary theory.

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Katarzyna Pieprzak is an Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Williams College, Williamstown, USA.

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Mojca Pisek Mojca Pišek is a journalist and literary critic on the culture section of the second largest daily Slovenian newspaper Dnevnik, and the magazine Literatura.

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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.

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Lorraine Pounds was born in the UK, is a sculptor and writer, and presently lives in San Francisco.

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Leri Price

is an Arabic to English literary translator, based in the UK.

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Yousef al-Qa'eed was born in Al-Bihera, Egypt in 1944.

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Montasser al-Qaffash was born on 14 October 1964 and graduated from the Faculty of Letters, Cairo University in 1986.

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Jalil al-Qaissi was born in 1937 in Kirkuk, Iraq.

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Yahya al-Qaissi was born in Hartha, Jordan. He studied English at Philadelphia University, Jordan, and worked as a journalist in Tunisia.

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Insaf al-Qal'ajy is a short story writer and political journalist from Jordan.

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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.

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Ahmad al-Qarmalawi

Ahmad al-Qarmalawi was born in Cairo and grew up in Kuwait. He is a novelist and short story writer, a painter and musician.

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Fadwa al-Qasem is a Palestinian author, born in Libya in 1963. She has Canadian citizenship, and holds a BA in English Literature.

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Yousef el-Qedra is a poet and playwright who lives in Gaza. He has published four collections of poetry and some of his poems have been translated into French and Spanish.

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Xue Qingguo is a professor and dean of the Department of Arabic Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

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Mehdi Qotbi is the cover artist of Banipal 31, Spring 2008

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Saud Qubailat Saud Qubailat was born in the village of Melaih near Madaba in Jordan. He received his degree in Psychology from the University of Jordan in 1984.

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Mohamed Rabie is an Egyptian novelist, born in 1978.

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Sayed Ragab lives in Cairo. He is an actor and storyteller who has worked with the El-Warsha experimental theatre company in Cairo.

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Ziad Rahbani is one of the most prominent artistic figures in the Arab world in general and in modern Lebanon in particular through his major influence on society, and particularly on the youth

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Mahmoud al-Rahbi

is an Omani short story writer and novelist, born in 1969.

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Saif al-Rahbi is a poet and prose writer, born in 1956 in Sroor, a village in Oman.

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Saad Mohammed Raheem is an award-winning short story writer and novelist from Iraq.

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Naji Rahim

Naji Rahim is an Iraqi poet, born in 1965, who began writing and publishing in the mid-1980s.

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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).

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Rabia Raihane is from Morocco. She has been a teacher of Arabic language and literature, and currently works for the Ministry of National Education.

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Sofiene Rajab

is an award-winning Tunisian poet and short story writer, born in Enfida in 1979.

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Waleed al-Rajeeb is a Kuwaiti writer and poet.

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Mansur Rajih is a Yemeni poet and political activist for human rights, born in Yemen in 1958.

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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.

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Abdel-Monen Ramadan was born in Cairo in 1951, where he still lives and works. He has published three collections of poetry.

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Greet Ramael is manager for prose and theatre of the Flemish Literature Fund.

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Muhsin al-Ramli was born in 1967 in northern Iraq.

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Nassima Raoui

is a Moroccan poet and author, and has won prizes for her poetry, including the Buland al-Haidari Poetry Prize (2018) and the Tangier International Prize for Poetry (2012).

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Azza Rashad

is an Egyptian writer who was born in the Eastern Province, where she is the chief paediatrician for the Ministry of Health.

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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.

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Patrick Ray Has traveled widely

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Thoraya El-Rayyes is a literary translator based in Amman, Jordan.

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Mu'nis al-Razzaz was born in 1951 in Jordan and died unexpectedly in early 2002.

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Ali Abu al-Reesh is a prize-winning author, born in 1956 in Ras al-Kheimah. He is also managing editor of Al-Itihad newspaper.

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Taleb Al-Refai Please go to Alrefai

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Kamel Riahi is a Tunisian fiction writer.

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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.

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Fuad Rifka was born in 1930 in Kafroun, Syria and now lives in Lebanon.

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Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi was born in Diyalah, Iraq.

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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.

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Dahlia Riyadh (Dalia Riadh) was born in 1970 in Baghdad, Iraq.

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Taher Riyadh (Riadh)

is a Jordanian poet and translator of Herman Hesse.

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Emna Rmili

is a Tunisian writer and researcher, and is a professor of literature and criticism at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences in Sousse.

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Clare Roberts has an MA at SOAS, London,in Arabic Poetry and Turkish Politics.

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Nancy Roberts

is an award-winning translator of a number of contemporary Arab novelists into English including Naguib Mahfouz, Salwa Bakr, Mohamed el-Bisatie, Ezzat el Kamhawi, Hala el-Badry, also Ghada Samman, Ibrahim Nasrallah, Laila Aljohani and Ahlem Mosteghanemi

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Shadi Rohana

Shadi Rohana, born in Haifa in 1985, is a Palestinian academic and literary translator based in México City.

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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.

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Chip Rossetti

is Editorial Director of the Library of Arabic Literature bilingual book series at NYU Press.

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Abdel Rahman Majeed al-Rubaie was born in Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.

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Raheem Saad Mohammed Saad Mohammed Raheem is an Iraqi writer, shortlisted for the 2017 IPAF prize for his novel The Bookseller's Murder.

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Ahmed Saadawi

was born in Baghdad in 1973 and is a novelist, poet, painter and journalist.

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Wadih Saadeh

Lebanese poet Wadih Saadeh is committed to an immediate relationship with his reader, starting in the 1970s handing out handwritten copies of his poems to later, in the age of the internet, putting them all online.

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Ibrahim Saadi was born in Tikamra in the Kabyle mountains, Algeria, in 1950.

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Omar Sabbagh Omar Sabbagh is a widely published Anglo-Lebanese poet.

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Abdul H. Sadoun was born in Baghdad in 1968. He has a degree in Spanish language and literature.

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Mariam al-Saedi has had two collections of short stories published in 2009, and takes part in a writers' workshop aiming to produce original pieces of fiction.

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Mahmoud Saeed is an Iraqi novelist and short story writer, who settled in the USA in 1999.

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Hazim Saghieh was born in 1951 in Lebanon. He is a writer and journalist and worked on As-Safir newspaper in Beirut 1974-1989.

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Amina Said is the author of fourteen collections of poems, most recently Les Saisons d’Aden, published in 2011

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Ghalya Al-Said

is a poet and writer from Oman, living and working in London.

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Khalida Said

Khalida Said is a foremost literary critic in the Arab world, celebrated as a visionary vanguard with “profound and penetrating insight”.

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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.

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Amina Saïd 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.

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Mekkawi Said (6 July 1956 – 2 December 2017)

was an Egyptian novelist and short story writer, living his whole life in Cairo, where he was born.

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Mahmoud Sa'id (Saeed) was born in Mosul, Iraq, in 1939. He published his first collection of short stories Port Said and Other Short Stories in 1957.

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Abdullah Sakhi Abdullah Sakhi is an Iraqi writer, journalist and translator, born in Baghdad in 1951.

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Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin born in Kassala, eastern Sudan, in 1963 is a novelist and short story writer.

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Ahmed Salah Eldein

is an Egyptian writer and translator of Russian to Arabic

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Jackleen Salam (pen name Jackleen Hanna) is a writer, poet and journalist who emigrated from Syria to Canada in 1997.

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Christa Salamandra is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University of New York.

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Fakhri Saleh

Fakhri Saleh is a leading critic of contemporary Arabic literature and the author of many books on Palestinian literature.

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Sherif Saleh

is an Egyptian writer and journalist living in Kuwait, with a PhD in theatre criticism.

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Fawziya Shuwaish al-Salem is a Kuwaiti poet and writer.

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Helmy Salem (1951-2012) Egyptian poet Helmy Salem passed away on 28 July 2012 after a long battle against lung cancer. Only 61 years of age, he was recognised as one of the most prominent poets of the 1970s poetry movement in Egypt.

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Abdullah Salhi was born in 1968 in Beni Milal, Morocco. Since 1990 he has lived in Bordeaux and Paris.

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Salima Salih was born in 1942 in Mosul, Iraq. She studied Law in Baghdad and Journalism in Leipzig and now lives in Berlin.

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Saniya Salih was born in town of Misyaf, northern Syria.

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Tayeb Salih died in London on 18 February 2009, aged 80.

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Farouq Salloum is an Iraqi poet and writer, born in Baghdad in 1948.

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Basil Samara is the founder of Caravelle Inc., a corporation for the promotion of Arab culture.

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Jerius Samawi Biodata coming soon

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Ibrahim Samuel was born in Damascus in 1951. He graduated in Philosophy and Social Studies from Damascus University in 1982.

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Boualem Sansal is an Algerian novelist and essayist, born in 1949.

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Aliaa Saqqa is a Palestinian writer who was born in 1988 in the Gaza Strip. Her first collection of poetry is due to be published in 2013.

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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.

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Maisoon Saqr is a poet and painter, born in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

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Lutf al-Sarary

is an editor and short story writer, whose collection Please Stop the Bombing, was shortlisted for the inaugural Kuwaiti Al-Multaqa Prize for Arabic Short Stories in 2016.

 

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Saad Sarhan is a Moroccan poet.

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Salam Sarhan

was born in Iraq in 1961. A poet and journalist, he lives in London and works in TV broadcasting.

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Habib Abdulrab Sarori

is a Yemeni novelist, writer and professor, born in Aden in 1956.

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Dusan Sarotar born in Murska Sobota in 1968, is a novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter.

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Joachim Sartorius is a poet, translator and authority on international cultural policy.

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Muwaffak al-Sawad was born in Basra, Iraq, in 1971.

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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.

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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.

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Habib Sayegh born in Abu Dhabi in 1955, is one of the pioneers of the prose poem. He has published eight collections of poetry since 1980.

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Tawfiq Sayigh (1923-1971)

was a well known experimental prose poet and literary polymath and modern poetry translator from English to Arabic.

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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.

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Fidel Sbeity biodata coming soon

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Christopher Schaefer is a translator from the Spanish and French

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Rafik Schami was born in Damascus in 1946, into an Aramaic-speaking family, and started writing at a young age.

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Annika Scheffel is an actress and novelist from Hannover.

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Victor Schiferli (b. 1967, the Netherlands) is a writer and poet, and international advisor for fiction at the Dutch Foundation for Literature (www.letterenfonds.nl), supporting the translation of books from the Netherlands.

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Elke Schmitter is a poet, novelist and journalist, as well as the Cultural Editor of Der Spiegel newspaper. Her works have been translated into 22 different languages.

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Barbara Schwepcke

is the founder of Gingko and the publisher-founder of Haus Publishing.

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Michael Scott teaches introductory Arabic and translates contemporary Arabic fiction. He spent 25 years in the Arab world and South Asia.

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Spencer Scoville is a professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University, Utah.

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Nadia El-Sebai is the Executive Director of the Arab British Centre.

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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.

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Johanna Sellman was born in Göteborg, Sweden in 1979. She is pursuing a PhD on Arabic literature in Europe at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Habib Selmi was born in al-’Ala, Tunisia, in 1951. He has published seven novels and two collections of short stories.

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David Semah (Baghdad 1933 – Haifa, 1997)

was born in Baghdad and showed a great interest in Arabic literature at an early age.

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Jeon Seong-tae Jeon Seong-tae was born in 1969. His critically acclaimed stories deal with the problems of individual identity that arise from the oppressive effect of collectivism.

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Bachir Sfeir is a Lebanese writer

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Anwar Sha’ul (Baghdad 1904 - Kiryat Ono, Tel Aviv, 1984)

was born in Baghdad into an educated middle class Iraqi Jewish family with European roots. He was a writer of poetry and fiction, a journalist, a translator, a man of theatre and cinema, a lexicographer, an educator – in fact an encyclopaedist and “a master of a thousand crafts” or jack-of-all-trades.

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Hashim Shafiq was born in Iraq in 1950.

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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.

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Ahmed al-Shahawy was born in Dumiyat, Egypt, in 1960.

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Mohammed Shaheen is Jordanian, and the Vice-President of Mu'tah University, Jordan.

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Mahmoud Shahin is a Palestinian writer and critic.

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Dhaen Shahine is a poet and journalist, born in Dubai in 1961.

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Mohammad al-Shaibani works as a cultural journalist and lives in Sana'a. He has published three collections of poetry.

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Aziz Shaibani MD is president of the Arab-American Educational Foundation. He practises clinical neurophysiology, neuromusculoskeletal medicine and neurology in Houston, Texas, graduating in 1983 from the Medical School of Mosul University, Iraq.

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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.

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Khairy Shalaby (1938-2011) one of Egypt’s most distinguished and popular authors, died at the age of 73 after a fatal heart attack on 9 September 2011 at his home in Cairo.

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Hassan al-Shami is a Lebanese literary critic and lives in Paris.

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Mona al-Shammari is a Kuwaiti author and journalist.

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Anton Shammas

is a Palestinian poet and author, essayist and translator of Arabic, Hebrew and English.

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Bassam Shamseldin was born in Ib, Yemen in 1978. He has published three collections of stories and three novels.

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Hisham Sharabi was Professor of History Emeritus and founder of Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

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Maher Sharafeddine was born in Sweida in the south of Syria.

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Balkis Sharara

is an author, sister of Hayat Sharara, and wife of renowned Iraqi architect Rifat Chadirji.

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Hayat Sharara (1935–1997)

was a talented writer and fierceless Iraqi intellectual, who struggled to survive in Ba'athist Baghdad, succumbing to suicide in 1997.

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Mohammed al-Sharekh

is the visionary founder of Sakhr Software, introducing Arabic language software, and a short story writer, born in Kuwait in 1942.

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Sulaiman al-Shatti is a Kuwaiti academic, short story writer, novelist, and critic.

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Hooda Shawa is a short story writer, born in the UK in 1964 to a Palestinian father and British mother.

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Hanan al-Shaykh

is a Lebanese novelist, playwright and journalist, renowned in particular for her first novel in English translation The Story of Zahra.

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Deema Shehabi Deema Shehabi, a Palestinian-American poet, born in Kuwait, whose work has appeared in various anthologies and literary journals, has been nominated for the Pushcart prize three times.

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Yahya al-Sheikh is an Iraqi-Norwegian artist, born in Qalat Salih, Iraq, in 1945.

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Hassab Al-Sheikh Ja'far (1942–2022)

is an Iraqi poet and novelist, born in 1942.

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Mati Shemoelof

is an Arab-Jewish poet, author and editor, born in 1972.

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Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani

is an Arab Jew. He is a professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University, and chief editor of Maktoob, a book series for the translation of Arabic literature.

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Tarek Sherif was born in Edmonton, Canada in 1978 of Egyptian parents.

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Adania Shibli was born in Palestine in 1974.

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Faris Al-Shidyaq Was born in Lebanon in 1804 and was an Ottoman writer, scholar and journalist.

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Naomi Shihab Nye was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1952 to a Palestinian father and an American mother.

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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.

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Natalie Shooter

is a Beirut-based writer, editor and music researcher.

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Mahmoud Shukair

is a prodigious Palestinian writer of short stories and novels for adults and teenagers, with forty-five books, six television series, and four plays.

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Girgis Shukry

was born in Sohag, Egypt, on 27 August 1967.

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Walid Shurafa is a Palestinian writer, born in Nablus, Palestine, in 1973.

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Fawziyya al-Sindi is a Bahraini poet. Since 1982 she has published five collections of poetry.

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Nihad Sirees was born in 1950 in Aleppo, Syria, and has been a novelist and screenwriter since the 1980s.

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Adel El-Siwi is an Egyptian painter and translator of Italian poetry into Arabic.

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Roderick Six is a Flemish literary journalist and columnist.

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Sara Slim

Sara Slim is an Algerian translator and a literary critic and writes for several Arabic magazines.

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Vivian Slioa was born in Baghdad in 1976. She writes in Arabic and Swedish.

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Jonathan Smolin

is the Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College, USA.

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Olivia Snaije is a journalist covering Middle East cultural affairs, living in Paris, France.

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Reuven Snir

is professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of Haifa.

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Saleh Snoussi is Professor of International Law and Relations at the University of Benghazi and author of five novels.

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Tamara M. Soban was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1962. Since 2002 she has worked as a translator and editor for the Moderna galerija/Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana.

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Alawiya 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.

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Mohammed Sof was born in Casablanca in 1950. He studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at Bordeaux University.

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Walid Soliman Is a successful Tunisian writer and translator.

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Ronny Someck

is a poet, artist and author. He was born in Baghdad in 1951 into an Iraqi Jewish family and moved with his family to Israel as a young child.

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Hannah Somerville

Hannah Somerville is a London-based investigative journalist and former health reporter.

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Amir Sommer

Amir Sommer is an award-winning poet and author, the love child of a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman.

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Park Soo-yeon is a Korean critic and teaches modern Korean literature in Chungnam National University.

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Mansour El-Souwaim is a novelist and short story writer from the Darfur district of Sudan.

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Mbarek Sryfi

is a Moroccan poet and a lecturer in Arabic language at the University of Pennsylvania.

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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.

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Paul Starkey

is an award-winning translator and Emeritus Professor of Arabic, University of Durham and Chairman of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Ulf Stolterfoht is a poet and translator. He won the 2008 US PEN Award for Poetry In Translation.

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Mark Strand was US Poet Laureate in 1990 and in 1999 won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Blizzard of One.

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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).

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Mehmet Hakki Sucin is a Turkish academic, translator and Arabist.

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Wigdan al-Sukhni was born in 1979.

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Sohn Suk-joo is a former journalist who currently works as a translator of Korean literature into English and vice versa.

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Rada Sukkar (b. Iraq, 1961) studied civil engineering in Baghdad and Delft.

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Firas Sulaiman is a Syrian poet, born in Tartus in 1969.

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Nabil Sulaiman was born in 1945 and graduated from Damascus University in 1967.

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Yasir Suleiman CBE

is Emeritus Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge, Professorial Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

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Fadhil Sultani was born in Iraq in 1948 and left the country in 1977.

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Kim Sun-woo was born in 1970 and is active in all facets of literature, from poetry to essays and fiction.

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Thani al-Suwaidi was born in 1966 in Ras al-Khayma (UAE).

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Bill Swainson

is a literary consultant and freelance editor.

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Khalil Sweileh (Suwailih)

was born in Syria in 1959. He has a BA in History (Damascus University,1986).

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Jake Syersak

is a poet, translator and editor, based in the USA.

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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.

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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.

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Son Taek-su Son Taek-su made his debut in 1998 when he won the Hankook Ilbo Spring Literary Contest for poetry. In his poems depicts the loss of unity in modern daily life and the values of farming culture and folklore prior to modernization.

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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.

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Abu-Youssef Taha was born in 1946 in Marrakech, Morocco, and now works as an inspector of secondary schools.

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Dalia Taha

is a Palestinian poet, playwright and novelist, based in Ramallah.

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Abu Youssef Taha Is considered one of the pioneers of the Moroccan short story.

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Miral al-Tahawy was born in 1968 and studied Literature at Cairo University.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Wiam El-Tamami is an Egyptian freelance literary translation editor and winner of the 2011 Harvill Secker Young Translator's Prize.

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Zakaria Tamer is a Syrian short story writer.

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William Tamplin is a graduate of Georgetown University, and is pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University.

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Aoe Tanami is a Japanese researcher in Middle Eastern Studies, currently serving as a Chief Research Fellow of the Center for Asian Pacific Studies, Seikei University.

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Maisaa Tanjour

Maisaa Tanjour is a freelance translator and interpreter born in Salamieh, Syria, in 1979.

She studied at the University of Homs, and has a BA in English Language and Literature and a PG Diploma in Literary Studies.

She then came to the UK to study at the University of Leeds, and has an MA in Interpreting and Translation Studies, and a PhD in Translation Studies.

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Nirvana Tanoukhi has a BA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut, and studied and worked at Arkansas and Texas universities.

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Baha Eddine Taoud was born in 1946 in Ksar El-Kebir, Morocco.

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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.

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Chafik Targui

is a Tunisian poet, novelist, critic and professor, specializing in Modern Arabic Literature.

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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.

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Waheed Taweela is an Egyptian writer, born in 1960.

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Sahar Tawfiq was born and grew up in Cairo, where she still lives.

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Katia al-Tawil

is a Lebanese novelist, critic and a university lecturer.

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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.

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Aurora Tellenbach is working for a PhD in filmmaking at Götenberg University, Sweden.

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Habib Tengour

a poet and anthropologist, was born in Mostaganem, west Algeria, in 1947.  He is considered as one of the Maghreb’s most forceful and visionary poetic voices of the post-colonial era.

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Ho Anh Thai is one of the most prolific writers in Vietnam. An army veteran, a diplomat and now an editor for World Affairs Weekly,he has written hundreds of short stories.

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Fadhil Thamir

Fadhil Thamir is an Iraqi literary critic and translator, born in Baghdad in 1938. He has published many books of literary criticism in Arabic.

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Ahmed Rashid Thani (1963-2012) started writing poetry in the late 1970s and in 1981 published a collection in colloquial Arabic, establishing him as a forthright modernist in both style and subject matter.

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Lina Tibi was born in 1963 in Damascus, Syria, and has lived in Kuwait, UAE, Lebanon, Cyprus, the UK, France and Egypt.

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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.

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Stefan Tobler is a translator from Portuguese and German

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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.

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Nael el-Toukhy

is an author, translator and journalist from Egypt.

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Ahmed Khaled Towfik , born in Egypt in 1962, started writing a series of horror and science fiction novels in 1993.

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Nasrin Trabulsi is a Syrian writer and news presenter on Kuwaiti television.

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Franca Treur won the 2010 Selexyz Debut Prize for her bestselling novel Dorsvloer vol confetti (Confetti on the Threshing Floor), excerpted above, which will be released as a feature-length film this autumn.

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Shahla Ujayli is a Syrian novelist and short story writer from Aleppo who teaches Arabic Literature.

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Astrid van Baalen grew up in England and now works as a poet and translator.

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Tom van de Voorde is a writer, poet, curator of interdisciplinary projects and translator of American poetry into Dutch.

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Charlotte Van den Broeck is a household name in Belgium as a performance poet.

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Bart Van der Straeten is a Flemish poet from Ghent, and made his poetry debut with the publication of Onbalans (Imbalance).

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Sophia Vasalou studied Arabic in London and has a PhD in classical Islamic theology. She has taught philosophy and other subjects in the European College of Liberal Arts in Berlin.

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Max Véga-Ritter is Professor Emeritus in Anglophone Literature at Blaise Pascal University, France.

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Hester Velmans is a translator specializing in contemporary Dutch and French literature.

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Kathleen Vereecken is a freelance journalist and writer of fiction for children and young adults until her novel entitled "Hair".

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Valentina Viene is an Italian graduate in Arabic and English, living in London.

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Jani Virk (b. 1962) has degrees in German and Comparative Literature and his published work includes novels, short stories, essays and translations from German.

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Cristina Viti is a poet and translator of contemporary Italian poetry and fiction.

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Hinrich von Haaren has written a number of short stories and radio plays which have been broadcast by numerous German stations. He lives in London.

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Hussein al-Wad is a University Professor and researcher born in 1948 in Moknine, Tunisia.

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Yahya Wagdi is from Cairo. He has published his works in Egyptian and other Arab newspapers.

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Najm Wali was born in al-Amara, Iraq, on 20 October 1956, and has a degree in German Literature from Baghdad University.

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Dima Wannous studied French Literature at Damascus University and the Sorbonne.

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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.

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Haytham al-Wardany was born in Cairo in 1972. He has a degree in electronic engineering from Cairo University (1995).

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Mahmoud El-Wardany is an Egyptian writer and journalist, and co-founder of Cairo’s weekly literary journal Akhbar al-Adab.

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Mubarak Wassat was born in 1955 in Al-Youssifiya, Morocco.

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Mubarak Wassat (Ouassat) was born in Mzinda Youssifiya, Morocco, in 1955.

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Aida Fahmawi Watad

Dr Aida Fahmawi Watad researches modern Arabic literature and is a senior lecturer at the Al-Qasemi Academy in Haifa.

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Shaima Issa al-Watani

Shaima Issa al-Watani is a writer and journalist from Bahrain and is a member of the Bahrain Writers’ Association.

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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.

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Taher Wattar (15 August 1936 – 12 August 2010) Considered the father of the Algerian novel, he was born in 1936 into a Berber family. After his first collection of short stories in 1965, he published two plays, three volumes of short stories and twelve novels.

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Stephen Watts was born in London in 1952. He is a poet, poetry translator and indefatigable researcher into poetry translation.

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Abdo Wazen

was born in Beirut in 1957. He is a poet, literary critic and translator of French poetry into Arabic.

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Stefan Weidner

is a literary translator from Arabic to German, a writer, editor and critic.

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Max Weiss earned his PhD in History from Stanford in 2007 and is now Postdoctoral Fellow in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

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Robbert Welagen (b. 1981) made his debut at the age of twenty-five with the novella Lipari (Selexyz Debut Prize 2007).

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Rachel Willson-Broyles is a freelance literary translator (Swedish–English) and pursuing a PhD in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Jae Won Chung is a writer and translator born in Korea in 1980. He now lives in New York City.

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Pippa Woodhead has a degree in Philosophy and History of Art and currently lives and works in London as a freelance journalist.

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Jonathan Wright

is an award-winning literary translator of contemporary Arabic literature into English and was previously a correspondent with Reuters news agency.

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Frank Wynne is a multi-award-winning literary translator from French and Italian.

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Hassan Yaghi is a well-known publisher from Lebanon at Dar al-Tanweer, with branches in Egypt and in Tunisia

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Mona Yahia

was born in Baghdad in 1954 into an Iraqi Jewish family, who escaped to Israel in 1971.

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Kaoru Yamamoto is a Japanese academic, translator and researcher.

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Ahmad Yamani was born in Cairo in 1970. He has published four books of poetry and has been living in Spain since 2001.

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Peiyu Yang

Peiyu Yang is a lecturer in Arabic studies at William & Mary University (W&M), Williamsburg, USA.

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George Yaraq is a Lebanese novelist and journalist, born in 1958.

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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.

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Samar Yazbek was born in 1970 in Syria.

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Kwon Yeo-sun Kwon Yeo-sun was born in 1965 and received the Sangsang Literary Award for her debut novel Blue Crevasse at the age of 31,

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Fares Youakim

Fares Youakim is an author, journalist and translator. German of Lebanese origin, he was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1945.

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Basema Younes is an award-winning novelist and playwright.

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Iman H. Younes is a Lebanese writer, born in December 1956. She is married and has three children.

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Farouk Yousif

Farouk Yousif (b. 1955) is a poet and art critic, from Baghdad, Iraq. As at Summer 2019 he has published seven collections of poetry, five books of art criticism and six travelogues.

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Tamara Yousry is a freelance writer, editor and musician.

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Samir el-Youssef is a Palestinian writer, born in Lebanon in 1965. He has published two collections of short stories.

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Saadi Youssef was born near Basra, Iraq, in 1934.

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Nariman Youssef is an Egyptian translator.

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Sabri Youssef was born in al-Malikiya, Syria, in 1956. He has a collection of short stories and four collections of poetry.

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Adam Youssouf is a Chadian writer and journalist living in Kuwait.

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Zahra Yusri was born in Cairo in 1974. She studied Arabic literature and language.

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Mona Zaki is an Egyptian, born in Belgrade. She is a contributing editor of Banipal.

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Ali Zalah was born in Saudi Arabia in 1976.

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Haifa Zangana was born in Baghdad in 1950 and has lived in London since 1976.

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Amin Zaoui is a novelist, born in 1956 in Bab el-Assa, Algeria, writing in both Arabic and French.

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Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry. His poems, essays and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in many publications.

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Ghassan Zaqtan is a Palestinian poet, born in 1954 in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem.

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Viktoria Zarytovskaya is a Russian Arabist academic and translator of contemporary Arabic fiction into Russian

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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.

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Mohammed Zefzaf was born in Souq Arbiya’ al-Gharb, Morocco.

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Hassan al-Zein biodata coming soon

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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.

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Ahmad Ali El-Zein was born in Akar al-Atiqa, north Lebanon in 1955.

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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.

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Hammour Ziada

is a well-known award-winning Sudanese novelist and writer, born in Khartoum in 1977.

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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.

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Mustafa Zikri is an author and scriptwriter, born in Cairo on 13 December 1966.

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Haitham El-Zobaidi is an Iraqi writer based in London and is the Chairman and Executive Editor of Al Arab Publishing Group.

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Henry Zoghaib is a poet, writer and cultural advisor, born in Lebanon in 1948.

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Ryan Zohar

is the Librarian at the Middle East Institute, New York University.

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Kafa al-Zou‘bi

is a Jordanian writer and journalist, born in 1965. She has five novels published.

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Fawzia Zouari is a Tunisian writer and journalist.

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Raef Zreik

is a prominent Palestinian lawyer and academic, born in Eilaboun in the Galilee.

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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.

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Sami Zubaida Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Profesor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London.

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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.

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Uros Zupan is an award-winning poet and essayist, born in 1963 in Trbovlje.

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Sabah Zwein is a Lebanese poet and critic. She works for the Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar.

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