In 1995, she got her Master of Arts in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Cairo.

Miral has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Arab Literature from Close University. She stepped out from her home unaccompanied by a male relative for the first time when she was 26, and still had to be covered from head to foot.

She grew up in a conservative Bedouin village, around a three-hour drive from Cairo. Miral is a Bedouin of the Al-Hanadi tribe, which migrated to the Al-Sharqiyya province of Egypt in the 19th century. Her third novel is currently being translated. Two novels, The Tent and The Blue Aubergine, have been translated into English by Anthony Calderbank, published by the American University Press, Cairo. This was followed by the novels Al-Khibaa (The Tent), Al-Badhingana al-zarqa (The Blue Aubergine) and Naquarat al-Zibae (The Gazelle's Tracks). Her first collection of stories Riem al-barai al-mostahila (The Exceptional Steppe Antelope) appeared in 1995. THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD Egyptian writer Miral al-Tahawy was born in Geziret Saoud in the Eastern Nile delta. People in the Middle East are just like anywhere else in the world and when someone is behaving promiscuously, they will gossip with the best of them.The astonishing story of the Egyptian writer Miral-al-Tahawy's journey in self-discovery from the sheltered existence in a patriarchal Bedouin village. When talking with people about Middle-Eastern culture there is often this stigma that people are too reserved and that the culture blocks anyone from saying anything in regard to sexual matters.

More than just the humor in this line, I want to point out that this novel was originally written in Arabic and even won Best Novel of the Year at the Cairo Book Fair. Inshirah laughs: “What he needs is an hour with Fatima Al-Gurumiyya.”” More so, it is the story of a people who remember a time when kings and princes paid homage to them and they controlled large piece’s of Egypt’s land, yet are now dwindling. It is a story of a journey of Muhra, the main character, as she finds out about the bitter truth about her mother and the foreigner whom she loved. Here we have a world where an entire people’s way of life is threatened by the ever-increasing majority who live in cities. Here is an interesting tale of a Bedouin girl living in the 19th century.

الخباء by Miral al-Tahawy