Omaima Al-Khamis was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1966. She holds a BA in Arabic literature from King Saud University and a diploma in English from Washington University. She began her career as a teacher of literature before spending ten years as director of educational media in the Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia.

A prolific writer, she began writing for newspapers at an early age. She has published novels, short-story collections, opinion pieces, and children’s books, and has been translated into English, Italian, and other languages. Her first novel, al-Bahriyat (Sailors), was a popular success and her second novel, al-Warifa (The Leafy Tree), was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010.

The Book Smuggler (titled Masra al-Gharaniq fi Mudun al-‘Aqiq in the original Arabic) was published in 2017 and is her fourth novel. It won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2018.

She lives in Riyadh with her husband, two sons, and daughter.

 

Sarah Enany is a literary translator and a professor in the English Department of Cairo University, Egypt.