She was born in a village in the
Sharqia Governorate in the eastern Nile delta. Her Bedouin family belongs to the al-Hanadi tribe. Al-Tahawy is the youngest of seven children. She has stated that her progressive-thinking father was responsible for her obtaining an education, in spite of the constraints of traditional Bedouin society especially on women. She gained a BA in
Arabic literature from
Zagazig University, and then worked as a schoolteacher which allowed her to avoid early marriage. She then continued her education at
Cairo University, moving to the city at the age of 26. This brought her into direct conflict with her family, and she also went through a difficult period of adjustment in the capital. Notwithstanding, she eventually earned a Masters and a PhD from Cairo University, and learnt several languages:
classical Arabic,
Hebrew,
Persian, and English. Al-Tahawy published her first book, a collection of short stories, in 1995. She was signed up by Hosni Soliman, owner of
Dar Sharqiyyat and publisher of some of the most critically acclaimed
Egyptian literature of the 1990s. Her first novel
Al-Khibaa (
The Tent) came out in 1996, followed by
Al-Badhingana al-zarqa (
Blue Aubergine) in 1998 and
Naquarat al-Zibae (
Gazelle Tracks) in 2008. In 2007, al-Tahawy moved to the United States. She served as an assistant professor in the foreign languages department at
Appalachian State University in
North Carolina. She was also the coordinator of their Arabic programme. She is currently an associate professor at
Arizona State University. Al-Tahawy's most recent book,
Brooklyn Heights, has met with considerable critical success. It won the 2010
Naguib Mahfouz Medal and was also nominated for the 2011
Arabic Booker Prize. Her work has appeared in two issues of
Banipal magazine (2002, 2007). She has also been translated into several languages including English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Urdu, and Hindi. Al-Tahawy has a son. She also goes by the name of Miral Mahgoub. ==Works==