Leila Aboulela FRSL was born in Cairo, grew up in Khartoum and moved in her mid-20s to Scotland. She is the author of six novels among them River Spirit, The Translator, Minaret and Lyrics Alley, which won the Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Leila’s life was filled with multi-cultural influences, which she often portrays in her writing, featuring migrant Muslims facing struggles in the West. She is a winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and her story collection, Elsewhere, Home won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award. Her books have been translated into 15 languages and her plays The Mystic Life, The Lion of Chechnya and others were broadcast on BBC Radio.