Background
Ahdaf Soueif was born on March 23, 1950, in Cairo, Egypt. She has a sister, Laila Soueif, a mathematician and human and women's rights activist.
Cairo, Egypt
In 1973 Ahdaf Soueif obtained a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the American University in Cairo.
Giza City, Giza, Egypt
In 1971 Ahdaf Soueif received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the Cairo University.
Bailrigg, City of Lancaster, England, United Kingdom
In 1978 Ahdaf Soueif gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster.
Giza City, Giza, Egypt
In 1971 Ahdaf Soueif received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the Cairo University.
Cairo, Egypt
In 1973 Ahdaf Soueif obtained a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the American University in Cairo.
Bailrigg, City of Lancaster, England, United Kingdom
In 1978 Ahdaf Soueif gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster.
(This is a collection of short stories that almost exclusi...)
This is a collection of short stories that almost exclusively focuses on Egyptian culture and life.
https://www.amazon.com/Aisha-Ahdaf-Soueif/dp/0747525366/?tag=2022091-20
1983
(Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern pol...)
Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern politics, this vivid and highly-acclaimed novel by an Egyptian journalist is an intimate look into the lives of Arab women today. Here, a woman who grows up among the Egyptian elite, marries a Westernized husband, and, while pursuing graduate study, becomes embroiled in a love affair with an uncouth Englishman.
https://www.amazon.com/Eye-Sun-Ahdaf-Soueif/dp/0385720378/?tag=2022091-20
1992
(Sandpiper is a collection of stories which provide insigh...)
Sandpiper is a collection of stories which provide insight into Egyptian and Western life and the links between them, looking at relationships within and across continents. People from many places - England, Alexandria, Istanbul - pass through defining crises in their relations with others. Most of them are women, and most find themselves in countries other than their own, where language, culture and prescribed emotions such as 'love' create confusion. New understandings are registered in intensely recalled moments and sensations.
https://www.amazon.com/Sandpiper-by-Ahdaf-Soueif-1996-02-08/dp/B01HC9H77U/?tag=2022091-20
1996
(Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that u...)
Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that unfurls across Egypt, England, and the United States over the course of a century. Isabel Parkman, a divorced American journalist, has fallen in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor. Shadowing her romance is the courtship of her great-grandparents Anna and Sharif nearly one hundred years before. In 1900 the recently widows Anna Winterbourne left England for Egypt, an outpost of the Empire roiling with political sentiment. She soon found herself enraptured by the real Egypt and in love with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi, an Egyptian nationalist. When Isabel, in an attempt to discover the truth behind her heritage, reenacts Anna’s excursion to Egypt, the story of her great-grandparents unravels before her, revealing startling parallels for her own life. Combining the romance and intricate narrative of a nineteenth-century novel with a very modern sense of culture and politics - both sexual and international - Ahdaf Soueif has created a thoroughly seductive and mesmerizing tale.
https://www.amazon.com/Map-Love-Novel-Ahdaf-Soueif-ebook/dp/B004G8P73M/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(This is an incisive collection of essays on Arab identity...)
This is an incisive collection of essays on Arab identity, art, and politics that seeks to locate the mezzaterra, or common ground, in an increasingly globalized world. The twenty-five years’ worth of criticism and commentary collected here have earned Ahdaf Soueif a place among our most prominent Arab intellectuals. Clear-eyed and passionate, and syndicated throughout the world, they are the direct result of Soueif’s own circumstances of being "like hundreds of thousands of others: people with an Arab or a Muslim background doing daily double-takes when faced with their reflection in a western mirror." Whether an account of visiting Palestine and entering the Noble Sanctuary for the first time, an interpretation of women who choose to wear the veil, or her post - September 11 reflections, Soueif’s intelligent, fearless, deeply informed essays embody the modern search for identity and community.
https://www.amazon.com/Mezzaterra-Fragments-Common-Ground-2004-11-01/dp/B01K0SMXQK/?tag=2022091-20
2004
(Ahdaf Soueif, the bestselling author of The Map of Love, ...)
Ahdaf Soueif, the bestselling author of The Map of Love, writes poignantly and beautifully about love, and about finding one’s place in the world. Achingly lyrical, resonant and richly woven, and with a spark of defiance, these stories explore areas of tension – where women and men are ensnared by cultural and social mores and prescribed notions of “love,” where the place you are is not the place you want to be. Soueif draws her characters with infinite tenderness and compassion as they inhabit a world of lost opportunities, unfulfilled love, and remembrance of times past.
https://www.amazon.com/Think-You-Stories-Ahdaf-Soueif/dp/0307277216/?tag=2022091-20
2007
(The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, houses manuscri...)
The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, houses manuscripts, textiles, ceramics and other works from the seventh century to the present day, and is one of the world's most encyclopedic collections of Islamic art. The origin of its artifacts ranges from Spain to Egypt to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India and Central Asia. Reflections, edited by British-Egyptian novelist and critic Ahdaf Soueif, showcases these works, and creates a work of art in itself. More than twenty writers and thinkers from around the world, including Adam Foulds, Kamila Shamsie, Suad Amiry, and Pankaj Mishra, have taken works in the museum’s collection and used them to launch essays, poems, and other pieces which allow the reader to explore 14 centuries of Islamic art and culture. Luxuriously designed to reference traditions of Islamic art and book design, as well as the landmark MIA building designed by I.M. Pei, Reflections is illustrated with photographs of the pieces the writers have chosen as their inspiration.
https://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Islamic-Ahdaf-Soueif-2011-10-17/dp/B01K0UAIMO/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(Ahdaf Soueif - novelist, commentator, activist - navigate...)
Ahdaf Soueif - novelist, commentator, activist - navigates her history of Cairo and her journey through the Revolution that's redrawing its future. Through a map of stories drawn from private history and public record Soueif charts a story of the Revolution that is both intimately hers and publicly Egyptian. Ahdaf Soueif was born and brought up in Cairo. When the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted on January 25th, she, along with thousands of others, called Tahrir Square home for eighteen days. She reported for the world's media and did - like everyone else - whatever she could.
https://www.amazon.com/Cairo-My-City-Our-Revolution/dp/0747549621/?tag=2022091-20
2012
(When throngs of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to de...)
When throngs of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to demand the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, Ahdaf Soueif - author, journalist, lifelong progressive - was among them. Now, in this deeply personal work, Soueif summons her storytelling talents to trace her city’s - and nation’s - ongoing transformation. She writes of the youth who led the revolts, and of the jubilation in the streets at Mubarak’s departure. We then watch as Egyptians fight for democracy, as the interim military government throws up obstacles at every step, and as an Islamist is voted into power. Against this stormy backdrop, Soueif casts memories of her own Cairo - the open-air cinema; her family’s land, in sight of the pyramids - and affirms the beauty of this ancient city. Soueif's postscript considers Egypt’s more recent turns in its difficult but deeply inspiring path toward its great human aims.
https://www.amazon.com/Cairo-Memoir-Transformed-Ahdaf-Soueif/dp/0345803515/?tag=2022091-20
2014
Ahdaf Soueif was born on March 23, 1950, in Cairo, Egypt. She has a sister, Laila Soueif, a mathematician and human and women's rights activist.
Ahdaf Soueif educated at schools in Cairo and London. In 1971 she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Cairo University. In 1973 Soueif obtained a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from the American University in Cairo. In 1978 she gained a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Linguistics from the University of Lancaster.
Ahdaf Soueif is the author of two collections of short stories, Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper (1996), and two novels. In the Eye of the Sun, about a young Egyptian woman's life in Egypt and England, where she goes to study as a postgraduate, set against key events in the history of modern Egypt, was published in 1992. The Map of Love (1999), is the story of a love affair between an Englishwoman and an Egyptian nationalist set in Cairo in 1900, as secrets are uncovered by the woman's great-granddaughter, herself in love with an Egyptian musician living in New York.
In 2004, her book of essays, Mezzaterra, was published. Her work Cairo: My City, Our Revolution (2012) is a personal account of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. She writes regularly for The Guardian and is a key political commentator on Egypt and Palestine. She is the founder of the Palestine Festival of Literature, Pal Fest. She lives in London and Cairo.
Ahdaf Soueif is best known as the author of "In the Eye of the Sun" and "The Map of Love". Her novel "The Map of Love" was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 21 languages. In 2004 she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Litterature from the Lancaster University and an Honorary Doctor of Litterature degree from the London Metropolitan University. In 2008 she obtained an Honorary Doctor of Litterature from the Exeter University.
(The Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, houses manuscri...)
2011(Set amidst the turmoil of contemporary Middle Eastern pol...)
1992(Sandpiper is a collection of stories which provide insigh...)
1996(When throngs of Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to de...)
2014(This is an incisive collection of essays on Arab identity...)
2004(Ahdaf Soueif - novelist, commentator, activist - navigate...)
2012(Ahdaf Soueif, the bestselling author of The Map of Love, ...)
2007(Here is an extraordinary cross-cultural love story that u...)
1999(This is a collection of short stories that almost exclusi...)
1983Ahdaf Soueif is a member of the Egyptian-British Society, of the Egyptian Writers' Union, of the Amnesty International, and of the Committee for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.
Ahdaf Soueif is married Ian Hamilton, a writer. They have two sons.
