Ahdaf Soueif (Arabic: أهداف سويف) is an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. She was educated in Egypt and England - studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. Her novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 21 languages. Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. Along with in-depth and sensitive readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004). Soueif has also translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English. In 2007, Soueif was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate." In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature (PalFest). Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for the Guardian newspaper and she has been reporting on the Egyptian revolution. In January 2012 she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution

Fadia Faqir (b. 1956) is a British Arab writer based in Durham, UK. Her work was translated into fifteen languages and published in eighteen countries. She is a Writing Fellow at St Aidan's College, Durham University, where she teaches creative writing. Faqir’s work is written entirely in English and is the subject of much ongoing academic research and discussion, particularly for its ‘translation’ of aspects of Arab culture. It is recognised for its stylistic invention and its incorporation of issues to do with Third World women’s lives, migration, and cultural in-betweeness

Imtiaz Dharker (Born 1954) is a Scottish Muslim poet, artist and documentary film-maker. She was born in Lahore to Pakistani parents. She was brought up in Glasgow where her family moved when she was less than a year old. She was married to Simon Powell, the founder of the organization Poetry Live, who passed away in October 2009 after surviving cancer for eleven years. Dharker divides her time between London, Wales, and Mumbai. She says she describes herself as a "Scottish Muslim Calvinist". Her daughter Ayesha Dharker, {whose father is Anil Dharker}, is a well known actress in international films, TV and stage. As of 2010 she has written five books of poetry Purdah (1989), Postcards from God (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The Terrorist at my Table (2006) and Leaving Fingerprints (2009) (all self-illustrated). She is a prescribed poet on the British AQA GCSE English syllabus. Her poems 'Blessing' and 'This Room' are included in AQA Anthology, Different Cultures, Cluster 1 and 2 respectively. The main themes of her poetry include home, freedom, journeys, geographical and cultural displacement, communal conflict and gender politics. All her books are published by the poetry publishing house Bloodaxe. Purdah And Other Poems deal with the various aspects of a Muslim woman's life where she experiences injustice, oppression and violence engineered through the culture of purdah. She was part of the judging panel for the 2008 Manchester Poetry Prize, with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. For many she is seen as one of Britain's most inspirational contemporary poets. Dharker is also a documentary film-maker and has scripted and directed over a hundred films and audio-visuals, centring on education, reproductive health and shelter for women and children. In 1980 she was awarded a Silver Lotus for a short film. An accomplished artist, she has had nine solo exhibitions of pen-and-ink drawings.

Aisha is a multi-talented creative with a keen thirst for writing. Her debut children's book "Time for Bed Zayd" has been warmly received, and is a well loved bedtime read of children from all over the world. Writing has always been her creative outlet since childhood. For generations her family has produced artists and storytellers. Aisha has inherited her family's love for words and has over the year's written articles for magazines, been commissioned to write poetry, and now turning her attention to books. A resident of Greater Manchester all of her life she is a modest striving mother. With a background in Counselling and Psychotherapy, she dedicates her life in the service of others. Her work includes not only working with the elderly, sick and those suffering mental illness, but also is committed to tackling sexual violence against women and girls.

Selma Dabbagh is a British Palestinian writer of fiction based in London. Her short stories have been included in a number of anthologies including those published by Granta and the British Council. She was English PEN’s nominee for International PEN’s David TK Wong Award 2005 and has won and been nominated for various international short story awards. Her first novel Out of It (Bloomsbury, December 2011) that follows the lives of the children of the former exiled leadership who returned to Gaza with the peace deals of the 1990s was recently published to widespread acclaim and reviewed positively by The Independent, the Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, the Daily Mirror, the Times Literary Supplement as well as other British and Middle Eastern newspapers with The Times describing it as “A punchy first novel… beautifully observed… the plot races and the voices are strong.” Dabbagh has lived in various Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain and the West Bank. She has recently been working on the script and dialogue for a fiction feature film by the Director Azza el Hassan. سلمى الدباغ: كاتبة فلسطينية- بريطانية تعيش في لندن. نشرت قصصها القصيرة في عدد من الكتب ورشحت لجائزة "International PEN David TK Wong"وجائزة "Pushcart" . نشرت قصصها القصيرة ضمن مختارات قصصية صدرت عن مجموعة Granta «جرانتا» و International PEN «منظمة القلم الدولية». تعد «خارج غزة» روايتها الأولى.

Leila Aboulela grew up in Khartoum, Sudan where she attended the Khartoum American School and Sister School. She graduated from Khartoum University in 1985 with a degree in Economics and was awarded her Masters degree in statistics from the London School of Economics. She lived for many years in Aberdeen where she wrote most of her works while looking after her family; she currently lives and lectures in Abu Dhabi. She was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000 for her short story The Museum and her novel The Translator was nominated for the Orange Prize in 2002, and was chosen as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times in 2006.