Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela is an award-winning novelist whose work has received critical recognition for its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. Her novels have been translated into fifteen languages and include Bird Summons, Minaret, The Translator (a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year), The Kindness of Enemies and Lyrics Alley (Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards). Aboulela was the first winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and her short story collection, Elsewhere, Home won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award. Her plays The Insider and The Mystic Life have been broadcast on BBC Radio, and her fiction has been published in Freeman’s, Granta and Harper’s Magazine, amongst others. Aboulela grew up in Sudan and moved to Scotland in her mid-twenties, where she now resides.