When I write I experience relief and satisfaction that what occupies my mind, what fascinates and disturbs me, is made legitimate by the shape and tension of a story. Leila Aboudela
Early Life
Leila Aboulela was born in 1964 in Cairo, (Egypt) to an Egyptian mother and a Sudanese father. She moved to Sudan at the age of six weeks and lived in Khartoum continuously until 1987, where she attended Khartoum American School and the Sisters’ School, a private Catholic High school. She graduated with a degree in Economics from the University of Khartoum specializing in Statistics in 1985; and then travelled to Britain where she obtained a M.Sc. and an MPhil in Statistics from the London School of Economics. In 1990 Leila moved to Scotland with her husband and children; by 1992, she started writing while working as a lecturer in Aberdeen College and later as a Research Assistant in Aberdeen University.
She has had several short stories published in anthologies and broadcast on radio, and one of her short stories, ‘The Museum’, won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000. Her collection of short stories, Coloured Lights, was published in 2001.
Her first novel, “The Translator” (1999), was chosen as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times in 2006 and it was nominated for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, “Minaret” (2005) was also nominated for the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award. Her third novel “Lyrics Alley” (2011) was the Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards; and was long-listed for the Orange Prize 2011.
DID YOU KNOW THAT…
- Leila’s third novel Lyrics Alley (2011) was inspired by the life of her uncle, the poet Hassan Awad Aboulela, who wrote the lyrics for many popular Sudanese songs.
- Leila’s works have been translated into thirteen languages.
- She wrote her award-winning book, Lyrics Alley, while residing in Abu Dhabi.
- Born in Cairo, Leila has lived in Sudan, Britain, Indonesia, the UAE and Qatar.
- Her mother who also attended the London School of Economics for her doctorate, was the first female dean of the Khartoum branch of Cairo University.
- Her uncle, Hassan Awad Aboulela – whose first poem triggered the inspiration for Lyrics Alley, died in 1962, two years before Leila was born.
- Leila has confessed to writing only in the morning.
- While writing Lyrics Alley, she watched 1950s films to draw inspiration from the clothes, the furniture and the hairdos; and read novels published around the early 50s.
- Her favourite books of all time are Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Tayeb Salih’s The Wedding of Zein.
- She is the first recipient of the Cain Prize For African Writing in 2000 for her short story "The Museum", at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in Harare.
- Her first novel, The Translator, (1999) is taught in universities in Sudan.
- She graduated from the University of Khartoum, in 1985, as the only woman in her statistics honour class.
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