AUTHOR PROFILE

Leila Aboulela

 

Leila Aboulela was born in 1964 in Cairo and grew up in Khartoum.

She studied for a degree in Economics at Khartoum University, then moved to England to obtain a masters degree in Statistics at the London School of Economics. She worked as a part-time Research Assistant while starting to write.

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.

She is also the author of three novels: The Translator (1999); Minaret (2005), which tells the story of Najwa, an aristocratic Sudanese woman forced into exile in Britain; and Lyrics Alley (2010), set in 1950s Sudan and inspired by the life of her uncle - a poet and songwriter.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 5-part adaptation of The Translator in 2002, and a dramatization of 'The Museum'. She has also had several radio plays broadcast, including The Mystic Life (2003) and The Lion of Chechnya (2005).

Leila Aboulela lives between Abu Dhabi and Aberdeen.

Bibliography
2010 Lyrics Alley, Weidenfeld & Nicolson

2005 Minaret, Bloomsbury

2001Coloured Lights, Polygon

1999The Translator, Polygon.

Awards
2011Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Award (Fiction), Lyrics Alley

2011Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book), Lyrics Alley, shortlist

200 Race and Media Award, The Translator, shortlist - radio drama serialisation

2002PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, Coloured Lights, shortlist

2000Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award, The Translator, shortlist

2000Caine Prize for African Writing, 'The Museum'