Modern Arabic literature by women begins in the late nineteenth century — the Egyptian-Lebanese journalist Aisha Taymur, the poet Warda al-Yaziji, the essayist May Ziadeh — but breaks open in the second half of the twentieth century. The Iraqi poet Nazik al-Mala'ika co-founded the Arabic free-verse movement; the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan became the most-quoted Palestinian woman poet of her generation; the Egyptian doctor Nawal El Saadawi made Arab feminism legible to the wider world.
In the contemporary period the names multiply: Hanan al-Shaykh, Ahdaf Soueif, Radwa Ashour, Salwa Bakr, Sahar Khalifeh, Susan Abulhawa, Hoda Barakat, Jokha Alharthi, Raja Alem, Inaam Kachachi.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction has been won by women three times since its founding in 2008 (Saudi Raja Alem, Lebanese Hoda Barakat, Algerian Ahmed Madi-jointly), and women have been on the shortlist almost every year. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award's women writers and emerging-writer categories have done similar work for the wider field.
