Amina Zaydan is an Egyptian

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 novelist and short story writer. She was born in 1966 in Suez

Suez

Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...

 and now lives in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 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

Gamal Al-Ghitani

Gamal el-Ghitani, is an Egyptian author of historical and political novels and cultural and political commentaries and was the editor-in-chief of the literary periodical Akhbar Al-Adab till 2011.-Biography:...

's Akhbar al-Adab

Akhbar Al-Adab

Akhbar Al-Adab is a literary Arabic weekly newspaper founded by Egyptian novelist and editor-in-chief Gamal Al-Ghitani.*Current editor-in-chief: Gamal El-Ghitani*Current senior editor: Ezzat el Kamhawi...

weekly newspaper. It also won the prize for Best Short Story Collection at the Cairo International Book Fair

Cairo International Book Fair

The Cairo International Book Fair is the largest and oldest book fair in the Arab world, held every year in the last week of January in Cairo, Egypt, at the Cairo International Fair Grounds in Madinat Nasr, near Al-Azhar University, it is organised by the General Egyptian Book Organisation...

 the following year.