Fatima Rifaat, also known by her pen name Alifa Rifaat, was born on January 5 1930 to a family in rural Egypt, where she was raised and spent much of her life. She began writing when she was 9 years old, most about the poverty and despair in the village where she was raised. After completing her secondary schooling, she went on to study at the British Institute of Cairo. She enrolled in the College of Fine Arts with the intention to continue her studies but her father arranged a marriage to her cousin and she was forced to stop her education. In the first few years of her marriage, her husband allowed her to write and published her stories but in 1960, facing pressure from her husband, she ended her career. She spent these years studying before her husband eventually permitted her to write after 14 years. During this time period, Fatima published some of her more famous works, including “My World of the Unknown” which tells the story of a woman entering into her sexual awakening. Her stories and collections mostly focused on women in traditional Islamic roles and different themes including female sexuality and sexual repression from the patriarchy. When her husband died in 1979, Fatimah took the opportunity to travel, first to Mecca to make the hajj before continuing onto Turkey and Europe. In 1984, she attended the First International Women’s Book Fair in England, where she spoke about the rights of women in Islam and polygamy. When she died in 1996 at the age of 65, Fatimah left behind a body of over 100 works, many which have been translated in multiple languages.