Writer, translator and critic Somaya Ramadan (Arabic: سمية رمضان) was born in Cairo in 1951. She received her BA from the English Department of the University of Cairo and in 1983 her PhD in English from Trinity College, Dublin. She has published successful short story collections and her first novel Leaves of Narcissus was published in 2001 and later translated into English. Apart from writing, she has translated numerous works and is a founding member of the Women and Memory Forum, a non-profit organisation working on the history of women in the Arab world. Somaya Ramadan lives in Cairo and works as lecturer in English and Translation at the National Academy of Arts