Matthew Ismail

I am a writer of fiction and nonfiction who lived in the United Arab Emirates and Cairo, Egypt for twelve years before recently returning to the United States.

Writing, for me, is a way of engaging with subjects and themes that intrigue me, whether that would be the life of the Egyptologist Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, the search for... more »

I am a writer of fiction and nonfiction who lived in the United Arab Emirates and Cairo, Egypt for twelve years before recently returning to the United States.

Writing, for me, is a way of engaging with subjects and themes that intrigue me, whether that would be the life of the Egyptologist Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, the search for bluesmen in the era of segregation, British life in colonial Egypt, mercenaries in the Sierra Leone Civil War, or espionage in Istanbul during the Cold War. Perhaps because my father was born in Syria of Turkish and Circassian descent and my mother was a Boston-born New Englander, I am interested in the experiences of people who live between worlds, whether as immigrants, in colonial or post-colonial societies, or Western misfits living elsewhere in the world. « less