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Yasmine Motawy

Yasmine Motawy

  • Position: Senior Instructor II
  • Department: Department of Rhetoric and Composition
  • Email: [email protected]
Brief Biography

Yasmine Motawy teaches rhetoric and composition at The American University in Cairo (AUC) and is a scholar, critic, translator, editor, consultant, and writing mentor in the field of children’s literature. She has served on regional and international children’s literary award juries such as the 2021 Bologna Ragazzi Award, the 2016 and 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2017 Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature, the 2019 Arabic selection committee of the UN SDGs Book Club, and chaired the 2025 Sawiris Cultural Award. She is co-editor of The Routledge Companion to International Children’s Literature (2018). She was convenor of the Children’s Literature Symposium supported by HUSSLab at AUC (2018). In 2022, she was awarded the Excellence in Research and Creative Endeavors Award from AUC. Her latest book is Children’s Picture Books and Contemporary Egyptian Society (2025). She is serving on the board of the International Research Society for Children's Literature from 2025 to 2027.

Research Interest
  • Children’s literature and media
  • Arab YA and picture books
  • Civic education and engagement
  • Nation-building, neoliberalism, and socialization in children’s literature and media
  • Prizing and publishing practices
  • Book production ecosystems
  • Life narratives
  • The creative writing process
  • Service-learning, publishing
  • Critical discourse analysis
  • Teaching writing for children
  • Keynote Speaker, the Child and the Book Conference, Tilburg (2025)
  • Lecturer and Keynote Speaker, Antwerp Children’s Literature Summer School (2024)
  • Lecturer, Antwerp Children’s Literature Summer School (2023)
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2018)
  • Co-PI, Research Network Fellow, UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (2018)
  • Co-PI, Translator, US Forestry Services (2013)

Books

Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • “Normal Grief”: Death in Children’s Picturebooks.” Alif 42 (2022): pp. 298-323.
  • “The Way Back Home: Self-Authorship, Home, and Intergenerational Bonds in Arabic YA Novels of Return.” International Research Society for Children’s Literature Journal. 14.3 (2021): 269-282. Edinburgh UP. 
  • McAdam, Julie, Susanne Abou Ghaida, Evelyn Arizpe, Lavinia Hirsu & Yasmine Motawy. “Children’s Literature in Critical Contexts of Displacement: Exploring the Value of Hope.” Education Sciences 10 (12): 2020.

Encyclopedia Entry

Book Chapters

  • "The wisdom of getting involved: activism in contemporary Egyptian children's literature." Literary Cultures and Twenty-First-Century Childhoods ed. Nathalie op de Beeck, Palgrave, 2020: 41-55. 

Book Reviews

  • “Review: Children’s Literature and Translation: Texts and Contexts. Eds Jan Van Coillie and Jack McMartin.” IRCL 15.2 (2022): 232-234.
  • “Review: The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. IRCL14.2 (2021): 238-240.
  • “Review: Alison Waller’s Rereading Childhood Books: A Poetics.” IRSCL Reviews, 2020.

Journalism

  • “Literary prizes...reflections and questions.” Akhbar El Adab. issue 1169. Pages 6-7. 4 Aug 2024.
  • “Interview—Leila Aboulela, Writing Sudan.” The Markaz Review. 29 May, 2023 .
  • “What Comes After The Wave? Trends in Arabic Picture Books (2017-2022).” Issue titled ‘Voices from the World of Arab Children’s Books’ IBBYLink Issue 64 (2023): 5-10.
  • “IBBY project in the spotlight: #EstoTbn’s Children’s Jury in Chile.”  Iedereenleest 24 Oct 2023.
  • “IBBY project in the spotlight: 'Once Upon a Time' in the United Arab Emirates” Iedereenleest 15 Feb 2023.
  • "And what of work, Sanaa? The one where Sanaa retires," (Doris Jones and Aliaa Hamed, Eds.), Rhetoric Today (2022) Department of Rhetoric and Composition, AUC.
  • “IBBY project in the spotlight: 'Literary Games' in Cyprus.” Iedereenleest  14 Dec 2022.
  • “IBBY project in the spotlight: 'Read with Me' in Iran.”Iedereenleest 20 Nov 2022.
  • “Princes, Pandemics, and Politics: Yasmine Motawy talks to Bestselling Author of ‘The Mamluk Trilogy’.” Arablit.org 28 April 2020.
  • “Adolescence, Food, and Illustrating Family History: A Talk About ‘Teta and Babcia’.” Arablit.org 10 Feb 2020.
  • “Looking for Solutions to the Challenges of Arabic Children’s Literature” Arablit.org. 30 Jan 2020.
  • “Walid Taher: ‘When I Write, I Consider Everyone a Child’” Arablit.org. 14 Jan