A translator from Arabic, a blogger and author, Randa Jarrar was born in Chicago in 1978 to a Palestinian father and Greek-Egyptian mother. When she was only two months old she moved to Kuwait with her family only to then flee to Egypt after the 1990 Iraqi invasion. From here they moved to America where she still lives today. Her life has been very similar to that of Nidali, the leading character in her first novel entitled The Map of Home. Described as one of the best first novels in recent years, in 2009 it won the Arab-American Book Award for best fiction. She is the only American author of Arab origin to have been a finalist at Beirut39, a Hay Festival project organised in cooperation with UNESCO and that selects the best 39 Arab authors under the age of 39. Interview by Elisa Pierandrei.