Reem Bassiouney

Reem Bassiouney is a lecturer and Head of the Department of Linguistics at the American University of Cairo. She is editor of the Routledge Studies in Language and Identity, and editor and creator of the Edinburgh journal of Arabic sociolinguistics. After graduating from Alexandria University, she obtained an MA and PhD from Oxford University. She has taught in British and American universities and published several novels.. In 2009, she received the Translation of Arabic Literature Award, given for the best translated work of fiction by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies, Arkansas University, for her novel The Pistachio Seller (2009). This was followed in 2010 by the Sawiris Cultural Award granted by the Egyptian Higher Council for Culture for her novel Dr. Hanaa (2007); the 2020 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for The Mamluk Trilogy (2018), which was also nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and is currently being adapted into a TV drama; and the State Prize for Excellence in Literature (2022) for the body of her literary work. Her novels have been translated into English, Greek and Spanish. Several of her academic books have been published in Europe and America.