Muhsin Al-Musawi

Muhsin al-Musawi is Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. On the University Senate, he serves on the Faculty Affairs, Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.

A renowned scholar and literary critic, Professor al-Musawi's teaching and research interests span several periods and genres. He is the author of thirty-nine books (including six novels) and over sixty scholarly articles. His books include: Scheherazade in England (1981); The Society of the Thousand and One Nights (2000); The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights (2009), Anglo-Orient (2000); The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence (2003); Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition (2006); Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict(2006); Islam on the Street: Religion in Arabic Literature (Rowman &Littlefield, 2009), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010; The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015); Arabic Disclosures: The Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022); The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures (Cambridge University Press, 2021). His edited volumes include Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship (Brill, 2009); Arabic Literature for the Classroom (Routledge, 2017). He also wrote the Introduction and Notes to the Barnes & Noble Classics Edition of The Arabian Nights (2007). Professor al-Musawi is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature, the foremost academic journal in the field of Arabic literature. He has also served as academic consultant for numerous academic institutions in the United States and abroad.

Professor al-Musawi is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the highly prestigious 2002 Owais Award in Literary Criticism, the 2018 Kuwait Prize in Arabic Language and Literature , King Faisal Prize in Arabic Literature in English, Jan.2022; and Sheikh Zayed Book Award, May 2022.