Boutheina Khaldi is a Professor of Arabic and comparative literature at the American University of Sharjah and an internationally acclaimed literary critic and novelist. She holds a PhD (double major) in Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington (USA). Before joining the American University of Sharjah, she taught at Duke and Yale universities, USA. She is the author of Egypt Awakening in the Early Twentieth Century: Mayy Ziyādah’s Intellectual Circles (Palgrave, 2012), Al-Muḍmar fῑ al-Tarassul al-Niswῑ al-‘Arabῑ (‘Reading between the Lines’ of the Arab Women’s Epistolary Writing, longlisted for Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Young Authors, 2015). She is the co-editor of three books: al-Adab al-‘Arabῑ al-Ḥadῑth: Mukhtᾱrᾱt, al-Wᾱfῑ fῑ Turᾱth al-‘Arab al-Thaqᾱfῑ, and Turᾱth al-‘Arab al-Ma‘rifῑ, along with a score of peer-reviewed articles. She has been invited by Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia to give lectures, evaluate faculty for tenure and review programs. Her novel Ikhtibāl (Madness) (2019) was nominated for The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), also known as “the Arabic Booker” and in the same year, her novel entered the Guinness World Record (GWR) for the largest simultaneous book signing ceremony in the world held in Sharjah International Book Fair. Professor Khaldi is also the recipient of Fast Company Middle East’s 2024 Most Creative People in Business in recognition of her multidimensional contributions to literature and academia and her innovative research methodologies. Her latest work is a translation of the Iraqi philosopher, novelist, and artist Khudayyir Miri’s The Days of Madness and Honey (2026) which Columbia University Prof. Hamid Dabishi describes as “a heroic labor of love”.