Alia Mamdouh
The writing career of Alia Mamdouh, who was born in 1944 of an Iraqi father and a Syrian mother, has spanned the Arab world in the fields of literature and journalism.
Mamdouh graduated with a degree in psychology in 1971 from the University of Mastansariyya, Iraq. Her first collection of short stories, .Iftitahyya li-l-Dahik. (An Overture of Laughter), was published in Beirut in 1973; this was followed five years later by her second collection of short stories .Hawamish ila al-Sayyida B. (Margins for Mrs. B). Her first novel, .Layla wa al-Dhi.b. (Layla and the Wolf)., was published in 1981. Her second novel, .Mothballs. (Habat al-Naftalin), was published in English by Garnet Publishing and will be published soon in Italian, Dutch and French. .Al-Wala.. (The Passion), a third novel, was published in 1995.
Mamdouh was also Editor-in-Chief at .Al-Rasid. magazine from 1970 to 1982, before taking up a similar position at .Al-Fikr al Mu.asir. magazine for two years. Mamdouh continues to contribute to the main newspapers and journals of the Arab world.
She currently lives in Paris.
This information was collected from In the House of Silence, autobiographical Essays by Arab women Writers, Edited By Fadia Faqir, Garnet Publishing, United Kingdom. 1998