Muhsin J. al-Musawi is professor of Arabic and comparative studies at Columbia University. He has been teaching at the American University of Sharjah and taught at a number of Universities in North Africa and the Middle East. He has published many books in English and Arabic, including Scheherazade in England; Anglo-Orient; The Postcolonial Arabic Novel; Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition; Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict; and Islam in the Street: The Islamic Dynamic in Literary Production, as well as four novels. He is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature and the recipient of many awards, including the prestigious Owais Award in literary criticism.