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-Husayniyah in Sharqia Governorate to a family of Bedouin origins. She was the youngest of seven siblings, all male except for 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.