Dr Reem Bassiouney, an award-winning author and a professor of Sociolinguistics, was born in Alexandria, Egypt (1973). She has authored seven academic books and eleven novels. Her works have been best-sellers in the Arab World. Seven of her novels have been translated into other languages. She obtained her MPhil and DPHIL in linguistics from Oxford University. She is a professor of Linguistics at the American University in Cairo. Before that, she was an associate professor at Georgetown University in the US. Dr Bassiouney is the winner of the Sheikh Zaid Award (2024) for her Arabic novel, “Al-Halawani Thulathiat Al-Fatimyyin – الحلواني ثلاثية الفاطميين.” She also won the National Prize for Excellence in Literature (2022) from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. Bassiouney was awarded the prestigious Naguib Mahfouz Award (2020) from Egypt’s Supreme Council for Culture for “Sons of the People,” making her the first woman to win this prize. “Sons of the People” has also been nominated for the Dublin Literary Award by Bibliotheca Alexandria. Dr. Bassiouney was granted the King Fahd Literature Award (2010) for “The Pistachio Seller.” She also won the 2009 Sawiris Foundation Literary Prize for “Professor Hanaa.”