Rana Kabbani (Arabic: رنا قباني; born 1958) is a British Syrian cultural historian, writer and broadcaster who lives in London.
[2] In particular, Kabbani was influenced by her maternal grandmother Salwa Ghazzi, suffragette and pioneering feminist from an landowning liberal educated patrician family.
[3] Kabbani spent her childhood and young adulthood in New York City, Damascus, Jakarta and Washington DC, where her father held a career as a diplomat and Syrian ambassador.
Her great uncle Fawzi Ghazzi wrote the first Syrian Constitution - taught as a document of pioneering liberalism - but was assassinated by agents of French colonialism for not accepting to mention their Mandate in Syria in it.
[4] Kabbani's other works include her translations from the Arabic of Mahmoud Darweesh's 'Sand and Other Poems' (1985) and her editorship of The Passionate Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt (1987).
[citation needed] She has been a fund raiser and a spokesperson for British charities that raise money for Syrian refugees, as well as for autism and mental illness.