Leila Fuad Aboulela FRSL (Arabic:ليلى فؤاد ابوالعلا; born 1964) is a fiction writer, essayist, and playwright of Sudanese origin based in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Her most popular novels, Minaret (2005) and The Translator (1999) both feature the stories of Muslim women in the UK and were longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and Orange Prize.

BBC Radio has adapted her work extensively and broadcast a number of her plays, including The Insider, The Mystic Life and the historical drama The Lion of Chechnya.

[4] Born in 1964 in Cairo, Egypt,[5] to an Egyptian mother and a Sudanese father, Aboulela moved at the age of six weeks to Khartoum, Sudan, where she lived continuously until 1987.

[9] Her multicultural upbringing was marked by summer vacations in Cairo where she was able to form a connection with her mother’s family and absorb Egyptian culture through food, popular media, and film.

[16] Aboulela began writing at the age of 28, following a move to Aberdeen, Scotland, with her two young children spurred by her husband’s work in the oil rigs.

[17] The anthology includes several genres such as autobiography, memoir, letters, short stories, novels, poetry, drama, humour, journalism, essays and speeches.

[9] Aboulela has stated her interest in countering stereotypical portrayals of Muslims, Sudan, and immigrants through her writing and has made an effort to reflect people she has met and places she has lived within her stories.

[7] Her novel Lyrics Alley is based on the true story of the life of her uncle, poet Hassan Awad Aboulela, and his tragic accident in the early 1940s which left him paraplegic.

[8] Aboulela cites Egyptian Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz and acclaimed Sudanese writer Tayeb Salih as literary influences from her childhood and time in Sudan.

[7] Aboulela has indicated her attraction to authors such as Abdulrazak Gurnah, Doris Lessing, Buchi Emecheta, and Ahdaf Soueif who migrated to Britain at a young age and thus possess similar experiences to her own.

[7] Aboulela’s works have received overwhelmingly positive critical reception, and she was celebrated by the likes of Ben Okri, Nobel Prize winner J.M Coetzee, and Ali Smith for her mastery of both the novel and short-story formats, as well as for her unique prose.

She handles intense emotions in a contained yet powerful way, lending their expressions directness and originality, and skillfully capturing the discrete sensory impressions that compound to form a mood.”[38] She is recognized for her nuanced depictions of Muslim immigrants, the intricacies of inter-cultural relationships, Islam, and female characters who subvert social expectations.

[39] John A. Stotesbury and Brendan Smyth argue that Aboulela has asserted her role  in the literary sphere as an author who challenges Orientalist and Islamic perceptions of masculinity as well as the popular conception of Muslim women.