Ahdaf Soueif

Soueif was born in Cairo, where she lives, and was educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster, completing the degree in 1979.^[2][3] Her sister is the human and women's rights activist and mathematician Laila Soueif.^[4]

Ahdaf Soueif's debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun (1993), set in Egypt and England, recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian woman who, by her own admission, "feels more comfortable with art than with life". Soueif's second novel, The Map of Love (1999), was shortlisted for the Booker Prize,^[5] has been translated into 21 languages and sold more than a million copies.^[6] She has also published two books of short stories, Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper (1996) – a selection from which was combined in the collection I Think Of You in 2007, and Stories Of Ourselves in 2010. ^{[citation needed]}

Soueif writes primarily in English,^[2] but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English.^[7] She translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English. ^[8]

Along with her readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's 2004 collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, and she wrote the introduction to the New York Review Books 2003 reprint of Jean Genet's Prisoner of Love.^[9]

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002.^[10]

In 2008, she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature,^[11] of which she is the Founding Chair.^[12]

Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for The Guardian newspaper, and she has reported on the Egyptian revolution.^[13] In January 2012, she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution. Her sister Laila Soueif, and Laila's children, Alaa Abd El-Fatah and Mona Seif, are also activists.^[14]

Soueif was married to Ian Hamilton,^[15] with whom she had two sons: Omar Robert Hamilton and Ismail Richard Hamilton.^[16]

She was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in 2012 and re-appointed for a further four years in 2016.^[17] However she resigned in 2019 complaining about BP's sponsorship, the reluctance to re-hire workers transferred to Carillion and lack of engagement with repatriating artworks.^[18]

In June 2013, Soueif and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for activist and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.^[19][20]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Soueif signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."^[21][22]

In 2020, Soueif was arrested for demanding the release of political prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt.^[23]

• Aisha, London: Bloomsbury, 1983.
• In the Eye of the Sun, NY: Random House, 1992.^[24]
• Sandpiper, London: Bloomsbury, 1996.
• The Map of Love, London: Bloomsbury, 1999.^[25]
• Translation of I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. NY: Anchor Books, 2003.
• Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, NY: Anchor Books, 2004.
• I Think of You, London: Bloomsbury: 2007.^[26]
• Reflections on Islamic Art, Bloomsbury-Qatar Foundation, 2011. Museum of Islamic Art (Dawḥah, Qatar). Hardback English 978-9992-142-60-8 Hardback Arabic 978-9992-142-61-5. Paperback English 978-9992-142-80-6 Paperback Arabic 978-9992-142-79-0
• Cairo: My City, Our Revolution, Bloomsbury, 2012^[27]
• This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature, Bloomsbury, 2017.^[28]

In a review of Egyptian novelists, Harper's Magazine included Soueif in a shortlist of "the country's most talented writers".^[29] She has also been the recipient of several literary awards:

• 1996: Cairo International Book Fair: Best Collection of Short Stories (Sandpiper)
• 1999: Nominated: the Booker Prize ("The Map of Love")
• 2010: Inaugural Mahmoud Darwish Award^[30]
• 2011: Cavafy Award
• 2011: Named in The Guardian′s Books Power 100^[31]
• 2011: Reflections: (English edition)^[32]