Ahdaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif was born in Cairo, Egypt, on March 23, 1950. She lived in England briefly as a child while her mother completed her doctorate before returning to Egypt. Soueif herself was educated in both Egypt and England. She studied English Literature at the University of Cairo and later, in 1979, earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster. In 1983, Soueif published her first collection of short stories, Aisha, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Her debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun, was published in 1992. The short story “Sandpiper” first appeared in an eponymous collection of short stories published in 1996, which was also named Best Collection of Short Stories at the Cairo International Book Fair. Her most acclaimed work, the novel The Map of Love, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Fiction Prize in 1999. Later publications include a collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004) and a translation from Arabic to English of I Saw Ramallah, by the Palestinian writer and poet Mourid Barghouti, among others. Soueif was married to British writer, editor, and critic Ian Hamilton until his death in 2001. Together, they have one son, filmmaker and writer Omar Robert Hamilton. She splits her time between Cairo and London. Though she writes in English, Soueif has communicated that she nonetheless strives “to express an Arab reality.”