About the Author

Amal Ghandour is a Lebanese-Jordanian author and blogger (Thinking Fits), with a career that spans more than three decades in the fields of research, communication, and community development. Her book, About This Man Called Ali (2009), was named the first biography of a modern Arab artist by the renowned Historian Philip Mansel.

Ghandour describes her new book, This Arab Life, A Generation’s Journey Into Silence (October 11, 2022), “as a memoir that is not of an individual but of the generation that came of political age in the 1980s in the Levant.” This Arab Life, she adds, “is an intimate rendition of the times that shaped us; the way we internalized our parents’ myriad dejections and disappointments; the pragmatism and silence that defined us; and the dispiriting inheritance we inexorably bequeathed our own children.”

In 2009, Ghandour became Senior Advisor to Ruwwad al Tanmeya, a regional community development initiative. She sits on the Board of Trustees of International College (IC), and on the Board of Directors of Synaps. She also served as Special Adviser to Columbia University’s Global Centers, Middle East (2014-2017), and on the Board of Directors of The Arab Human Rights Fund (2011-2014).

Ghandour holds an MS in International Policy from Stanford University and a BSFS from Georgetown University.

Among her works: Aeon, The Daily Beast, Washington Independent Review of Books, Midanmasr, Canvas.