Biography
Noor Naga was born in Philadelphia, raised in Dubai, and studied creative writing at the University of Toronto. Washes, Prays, her inventive debut, is a hybrid verse-novel about a lonely young immigrant woman who has a romantic relationship with her married professor, and her ensuing crisis of faith. The book, praised for its rich, sensory language and its skill in grappling with gender politics, in depicting diasporic culture, and in challenging one-dimensional representations of Muslim characters, won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Naga also won the 2017 Bronwen Wallace Award and the 2019 RBC-PEN Canada Emerging Writers Award. Her debut novel, If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English, won the Graywolf Press Africa Prize and is forthcoming in 2022. Naga teaches at Cairo’s American University, and lives in her grandmother’s home in Alexandria, Egypt.