Traces of Enayat
by Iman Mersal
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography | 2023 | Winner |
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography | 2022 | Shortlist |
| James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography | 2020 | Shortlist |
About This Book
Iman Mersal's first prose book — translated from Arabic by Robin Moger — is a genre-defying investigation into the life of Egyptian novelist Enayat al-Zayyat (1936–1963), who died by suicide after publishing a single novel. Moving between Cairo neighbourhoods, libraries, and her own memories of reading, Mersal reconstructs a forgotten life with the methods of detective, biographer, and essayist. It jointly won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography in 2023.
About the Author
Iman Mersal is an Egyptian poet and essayist born in 1966 in the Nile Delta city of Kafr Sabeer. She is a professor at the University of Alberta in Canada and one of the most significant contemporary Arabic poets writing today. Her poetry collections, translated into English by Khaled Mattawa, have been widely acclaimed for their sardonic wit, feminist politics, and formal freedom. Read more →
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