Mai Al-Nakib

About

Mai Al-Nakib is a Kuwaiti writer and academic whose work explores the cultural, political, and personal complexities of life in the Middle East. Born in Kuwait, she spent her early childhood in London, Edinburgh, and St. Louis, Missouri, before returning to Kuwait. She earned a PhD in English literature from Brown University and spent twenty years teaching English and comparative literature at Kuwait University, where her academic interests included feminism, citizenship, and postcolonial studies. Her debut collection, The Hidden Light of Objects (2014), won the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s First Book Award, making it the first short-story collection to receive the prize. Her debut novel, An Unlasting Home (2022), explores generations of women and the tensions between personal freedom, religion, and social expectations in Kuwait. She continues to write fiction and essays, bringing the region’s overlooked personal histories into focus.