Taleb Alrefai is a well-known Kuwaiti author. Shadow of the Sun (Dhil al-Shams), was his first novel, published in 2000, with a second edition in 2012. centred on the suffering of Egyptian and other foreign migrant workers in Kuwait. In 2002, he was awarded the State Prize for Letters for his novel Ra’ihat al-Bahr (Scent of the Sea). His novel Fi al-Huna (Here and There) was longlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and has a French edition. His novel Al-Najdi (2017, The Mariner) based on the life of a famous Kuwaiti sea captain, has editions in English (Banipal Books, 2020, with an audio edition (Spiracle, 2022), French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Turkish. Nashwa Nasreldin is a writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature. She is the translator of the 2014 Sheikh Zayed Book Award-winning novel, After Coffee, by Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, which was a Fiction finalist in the 2019 International Book awards. Her book translations include the collaborative novel by nine refugee writers, Shatila Stories, and a co-translation of Samar Yazbek’s memoir, The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. She has translated numerous short stories, which have appeared in journals including The Common, Words Without Borders, and ArabLit Quarterly. A former current affairs documentary producer and journalist, Nashwa has reported on stories from around the Middle East and North Africa. In January 2011 she travelled to Tunisia as the Assistant Producer on the Rageh Omaar Al Jazeera documentary, The Death of Fear, which traced the roots and repercussions of the uprising. During the first year of the Arab uprisings, she was based at the Middle East headquarters of Agence France Presse, covering the breakout of subsequent demonstrations from Syria to Libya. In her personal documentary, Class of 1990, which broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait, she reunited with former classmates, the country of her birth, to find out what happened to her friends – and their school – during the war that separated them. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and her poems have appeared in a number of literary journals in the UK and further afield. As well as translating and writing poetry, Nashwa writes feature articles and reviews for literary and cultural publications.

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Taleb Alrefai is a well-known Kuwaiti author. Shadow of the Sun (Dhil al-Shams), was his first novel, published in 2000, with a second edition in 2012. centred on the suffering of Egyptian and other foreign migrant workers in Kuwait. In 2002, he was awarded the State Prize for Letters for his novel Ra’ihat al-Bahr (Scent of the Sea). His novel Fi al-Huna (Here and There) was longlisted for the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and has a French edition. His novel Al-Najdi (2017, The Mariner) based on the life of a famous Kuwaiti sea captain, has editions in English (Banipal Books, 2020, with an audio edition (Spiracle, 2022), French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Turkish. Nashwa Nasreldin is a writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature. She is the translator of the 2014 Sheikh Zayed Book Award-winning novel, After Coffee, by Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, which was a Fiction finalist in the 2019 International Book awards. Her book translations include the collaborative novel by nine refugee writers, Shatila Stories, and a co-translation of Samar Yazbek’s memoir, The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. She has translated numerous short stories, which have appeared in journals including The Common, Words Without Borders, and ArabLit Quarterly. A former current affairs documentary producer and journalist, Nashwa has reported on stories from around the Middle East and North Africa. In January 2011 she travelled to Tunisia as the Assistant Producer on the Rageh Omaar Al Jazeera documentary, The Death of Fear, which traced the roots and repercussions of the uprising. During the first year of the Arab uprisings, she was based at the Middle East headquarters of Agence France Presse, covering the breakout of subsequent demonstrations from Syria to Libya. In her personal documentary, Class of 1990, which broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait, she reunited with former classmates, the country of her birth, to find out what happened to her friends – and their school – during the war that separated them. She holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and her poems have appeared in a number of literary journals in the UK and further afield. As well as translating and writing poetry, Nashwa writes feature articles and reviews for literary and cultural publications.

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