Ahdaf Soueif(b. 1950) is one of the few Egyptian authors writing inEnglish, and probably the most well known. Born in Cairo andeducated in both Cairo and England, Soueif combines activismand art in a range of genres that encompasses short stories,the novel, autobiography and essays. Translation, both ofher own work into Arabic and Arabic publications intoEnglish, is not only part of her professional repertoire,but broader questions of linguistic and cultural translationare key themes of her fiction. Soueif has won a number ofliterary awards, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in1999 for her second novel, The Map of Love(1999). Although her literary reputation is not in need of‘favourable mention’ by intellectual and scholarlyluminaries, it seems remiss to neglect the importanceaccorded her first novel, In the Eye of theSun (1992), by Edward Said. ‘The Anglo-ArabEncounter: On Ahdaf Soueif’ in the collection,Reflections on Exile (2002), suggeststhat Arab-Anglophone crosscultural, translational exchangeis inherent in Ahdaf's project through the mere fact of therepresentation of Arab culture through the English language,refracted through English literature and culture. Ahdaf'sfiction is striking for its acknowledged intertextualengagements with English literature, especiallynineteenth-century literature. Furthermore, the novel'sinherent structural ‘worldliness’, using the term in itsSaidian sense, signifies the emergence of Arabic literaturefrom the constraints of narrow nationalism into a liberatoryinternationalism. What Said observes about Soueif's firstnovel may as aptly be applied to her second novel,The Map of Love. Both novels are thefocus of this essay, but through the lens of questions ofhuman relations, which are a noticeably neglected dimensionof cultural and literary studies generally.