Ahdaf Soueif founded the groundbreaking Palestine Festival of Literature – PalFest – in 2007, which takes place in the cities of occupied Palestine and Gaza. She is the renowned author of – among other titles – the bestselling The Map of Love (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999 and translated into more than 30 languages), Cairo: A City Transformed, her account of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, and Mezzaterra (2004), an influential collection of essays. She is also a political and cultural commentator, and her articles for the Guardian are published in the European and American press.