Shady Lewis Botros

Shady Lewis Botros (born 1978) is an Egyptian novelist and journalist whose writing centers on cultural and political intersections within and beyond the Arab world. He lives in London, where he spent many years employed by the National Health Service and local authority housing departments, working with homeless people and patients with complex needs. He has published three novels to date, beginning with The Lord’s Ways (2018). His second novel, On the Greenwich Meridian (2020) was translated into French and German. His third is Brief History of Genesis and East Cairo (2021). His fiction engages with the social history of Coptic Christians and trajectories of migration from Egypt to the West.

Salma Moustafa Khalil is an Egyptian translator and social and political researcher based in London. Her translation and research work is focused on gender and minority issues, both in the Arabic-speaking world and among the diaspora across Europe. She is a research associate at the University of Birmingham and the University of Pennsylvania and translator at the Middle East Centre, LSE. Her literary work and interests are aligned with her academic research, where she focuses on empowering the voices of young Arabs everywhere through editorial guidance and translation.