Salma Khadra Jayyusi (1926–2023)

"Salma Khadra Jayyusi was born in Jordan to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother. She grew up in Palestine surrounded by books on Arab/Islamic and Western culture...

She completed her secondary education at Schmidt's Girls College in Jerusalem, and then graduated with honors in Arabic and English Literatures from the American University of Beirut. Soon after her graduation she married a Jordanian diplomat and lived, as a diplomat’s wife, in several countries. She only began her career as a writer and professor after raising her 3 children.

She began her critical career writing in Arabic, then, when she came to London for her Ph.D. which she obtained in 1970 from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, specializing in Arabic literature, she began and has continued to write also in English....

Soon after obtaining her Ph.D. in 1970 she started her career as a University Professor teaching first at the University of Khartoum (1970-1973), then at the Universities of Algiers and Constantine (1973-1975)."