Atef Abu Saif

Atef Abu Saif is a Palestinian writer, born in Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip in 1973, to a family originally from Jaffa. He holds a BA from Birzeit University, an MA from the University of Bradford (UK) and a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the University of Florence, Italy. He teaches Political Science at the University of Al-Azhar, Gaza, and is Chief Editor of Siyasat magazine, published by the Public Policy Institute in Ramallah. He is the author of six novels: Shadows of Memory (1997); The Tale of a Night of Chatter (1999); Snowball (2000); The Sour Grapes of Paradise (2003); A Suspended Life (2014), which was shortlisted for the 2015 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and Christina (2016). He has also published two collections of short stories, three plays and a number of books on political science. He wrote a daily account of life during the latest attack on the Gaza strip in 2014 in English, which was published by Comma Press in the UK with a foreword by the American philosopher Noam Chomsky. A Suspended Life is currently being translated into English and German. Abu Saif writes a weekly article for the Palestinian Ayyam newspaper.