Inaam Kachachi

Inaam Kachachi was born in Baghdad in 1952, and studied journalism at Baghdad University, working in Iraqi press and radio before moving to Paris to complete a PhD at the Sorbonne. She is currently the Paris correspondent for London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat and Kol Al-Usra magazine in Sharjah, UAE. Kachachi has published a biography, Lorna, about the British journalist Lorna Hales, who was married to the famous pioneering Iraqi sculptor Jawad Salim and a book in French about Iraqi women's literature produced in times of war. She produced and directed a documentary about Naziha Al Dulaimi, the first woman to become minister of an Arab country in 1959. Her first novel Heart Springs was published in 2005. Her second novel The American Granddaughter, was shortlisted for IPAF in 2009 and published in English, French and Chinese. Her novel Tashari was also shortlisted for the Prize in 2014 and published in French. Inaam Kachachi has also featured in Banipal magazine, who published a chapter from Streams of Hearts in its Summer 2006 issue.