Career

In 2000 she was characterized as "the keenest voice in Arab literary criticism in the United States today."

Al-Nowaihi studied as an undergraduate at the American University in Cairo. She gained her PhD from Harvard University with a thesis, directed by Wolfhart Heinrichs, on the poetry of Ibn Khafājah, revised and published in 1992. She died of cancer aged 44.

A book of essays was published in her honor in 2008.