Leila Aboulela

Leila Aboulela grew up in Sudan and graduated from the University of Khartoum, after which she studied statistics at L.S.E. In 1990 she moved to Aberdeen with her husband and children and started writing while teaching Statistics at Aberdeen University. Her work has been published in a number of anthologies and her stories have been broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 3 and 4. Her first novel, The Translator, featured as The Guardian Pick of The Week Fiction Choice (October 9, 1999). It was also long-listed for the 2000 Orange Prize and nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Leila's short story, The Museum, (published in Opening Spaces, ed. Yvonne Vera, Heinemann) is included in a collection of this author's short stories, 'Coloured Lights' and won the first Caine Prize for African Writing, worth $15,000.

Her second novel, Minaret, was chosen for the BBC's 'Book at Bedtime'  in 2005 and is one of the longlisted novels for the 2006 Orange Prize.

Titles: The Translator, Coloured Lights (short stories), Minaret (Bloomsbury), TV/film rights to The Translator optioned by BBC, BBC Radio Four's Women's Hour has serialised a drama adaptation of The Translator

Minaret

In her Muslim hijab, with her down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich families whose houses she cleans. Twenty years ago, Najwa, then at university in Khartoum, would never have imagined that one day she would be a maid. An upper class westernised Sudanese, her dreams were to marry well and raise a family. Then a coup forces the young woman and her family into political exile in London.

The years that follow hold more trials for Najwa and the realization that she has come down in the world. But she finds solace - in her visits to the Regents Park Mosque, the companionship among the Muslims she meets there and strength in the hijab she adopts. Her dreams of love may have shattered but her awakening to Islam has given her a different peace. Then Najwa meets Tamer, the intense, lonely younger brother of her employer. They find a common bond in faith and slowly, silently, begin to fall in love.