Jamal Sleem Nuweihed (1906–1994)

According to the scholar of Arabic literature, S.K. Jayussi (niece), Jamal Sleem was the daughter of a Lebanese doctor and a Turkish mother who loved story-telling. She was largely self-educated, and married the writer-historian, 'Ajaj Noweihed. She went with him to Jerusalem where they founded the Al-'Arab review. She wrote fiction and poetry throughout her life, although little was published. While this has been explained by cultural apologists as the result of her being a "reclusive person", in fact her own handwritten account of her life is an historical treasure of social and political history in the Levant. She was relatively well-traveled in the Arabic region. The fact that so much of her writing was suppressed by Islamicists, and for that reason remains unpublished, is well-documented in her own hand.

Also published under the name "Sawsan". The author of the collection of folk tales is part of a family venture through four generations. The author was first told the stories by her Turkish mother. Her niece, Salma Khadra Jayussi (now the founder and head of PROTA), organized the translations, with the help of Cristopher Tingley.