Amina Zaydan

Who is Amina Zaydan?

Amina Zaydan is an Egyptian novelist and short story writer. She was born in 1966 in Suez and now lives in Cairo where she works as a civil servant.

Zaydan is known for her strong stand on gender inequality in her writings. In 1994, her short story collection entitled It Happened Secretly won first prize in a literary competition held by Gamal al-Ghitani's Akhbar al-Adab weekly newspaper. It also won the prize for Best Short Story Collection at the Cairo International Book Fair the following year. She has since published a further volume of short stories called Fawda and several novels. Her second novel Red Wine won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal in 2007. An English translation of Red Wine by Sally Gomaa was published by the AUC Press in 2010.