DrMaggie Awadalla

I studied Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo under the supervision of Prof. Ferial Ghazoul. I went on to do my graduate work at the University of Kent, and earned my PhD from the Centre of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies under the supervision of Prof. Caroline Rooney. My research project was entitled "National Discourse and Egyptian Women's Writing: Generational Difference in the Works of Latifa Zayyat and Ahdaf Soueif."

I have published in the field of Arabic literature and culture. My research interests are in the field of women's writing in the Arab world. During 2011-12 I was a Research Fellow for the project, Europe in the Middle East: The Middle East in Europe, at Wissenschaft College in Berlin.

My most recent co-edited publication

The Postcolonial Short Story Contemporary Essays (Palgrave 2012)



places the short story at the heart of contemporary postcolonial studies. In so doing, it also questions what postcolonial literary criticism may be. Focusing upon short fiction from 1975 to the present day - the period during which critical theory came to determine postcolonial studies - it argues for a more sophisticated critique exemplified by the ambiguity of the short story form.

Other publications include

- Generational differences in three Egyptian women writers: Finding a Common Ground (Journal of Postcolonial Writing: Volume 47, Issue 4, 2011)

- The Labyrinth of Enclosures and Concealments in the Novels of Two Arab Women Writers (The International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 5, Issue 9, pp. 49-54)