Author
About the Common Read Author, Suleika Jaouad
Suleika Jaouad (pronounced Su-lake-uh Ja-wad) is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir, “Between Two Kingdoms.” She wrote the New York Times column “Life, Interrupted” and her reported features and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Vogue, and NPR. She is also the creator of the “Isolation Journals,” a community creativity project founded during the Covid-19 pandemic to help others convert isolation into artistic solitude; over 100,000 people from around the world have joined.
Born in New York City to a Tunisian father and a Swiss mother, Jaouad attended The Juilliard School’s pre-college program for the double bass and earned her BA with highest honors from Princeton University and an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College.
Jaouad’s career aspirations as a foreign correspondent were cut short when, at age 22, she was diagnosed with leukemia. She began writing her New York Times column from her hospital room at Sloan-Kettering and has since become a fierce advocate for those living with illness and enduring many other life interruptions.
Jaouad served on former President Barack Obama’s Presidential Cancer Panel, the national advisory board of Family Reach and the Bone Marrow and Cancer Foundation, and the Brooklyn Public Library’s Arts & Letters Committee. Suleika teaches workshops and speaks at many venues. She has appeared on broadcast media and in many print publications.