Ahdaf Soueif

Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator. Soueif was born in Cairo and educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. ‎ Her debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun , set in Egypt and England, recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian who, by her own admission, "feels more comfortable with art than with life." Her second novel The Map of Love was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, has been translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies. She has also published two works of short... stories, Aisha and Sandpiper - a selection from which was combined in the collection I Think Of You in 2007, and Stories Of Ourselves in 2010. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. She translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah from Arabic into English. Along with her readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction.
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