Hoda Barakat, an acclaimed Lebanese novelist, is one of the most original voices in modern Arabic literature. Born in Beirut in 1952, she graduated from Beirut University in 1975 with a degree in French language and literature. She has worked as a teacher, translator and journalist. Her works, written in Arabic, have been translated into many languages. She has published a collection of short stories, two plays, a journal and five novels one of which, The Stone of Laughter, won the Al-Naqid prize. Her third novel, The Tiller of Waters, won the 2000 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and was published in English in 2001. Barakat was decorated, in France, with Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et des lettres in 2002, and also Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite National in 2008.
