Miral Eltahawy (born in Sharqia Governorate in 1968) is an Egyptian novelist, short story writer, and academic who works as a professor of Arabic literature at the University of Arizona. She has published several novels and some critical works.
Miral Eltahawy was born in 1968 in the city of Al-Husayniya in Sharqia Governorate, to a family of Bedouin origins. She was the youngest of seven siblings, all male except Miral and another sister. She earned a BA in Arabic Language from Zagazig University and then worked as a teacher before moving to Cairo—against her family’s wishes—at the age of twenty-six to enroll at Cairo University, where she earned her MA and PhD degrees.
Miral Eltahawy published her first work—a collection of short stories—in 1995, and the following year, she published her first novel, “The Tent.”
Miral Eltahawy joined the faculty of Cairo University, then moved to the United States in 2007, where she worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages ​​at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, and as coordinator of the university’s Arabic Language Program. She currently works as an assistant professor at Arizona State University.