Meet the Author: Anne-Marie Drosso

Anne-Marie Drosso was born and raised in the heart of downtown Cairo, Midan El Tahririn. She left Egypt to pursue graduate studies in British Columbia, Canada. Her studies led to teaching positions in Economics, a law degree, and working for an administrative tribunal.

Although she returned to Cairo frequently to visit, she moved back there to live in 1999, while her husband served as Director of the American Research Center in Egypt .

“In a way, much of my life has been spent writing,” Drosso said. But it was only when she stopped working, and joined her husband in Cairo that she tried her hand at writing fiction.



Her first book, Cairo Stories, offers fabulous sights, sounds and smells of Cairo. However Ms. Drosso's focus is first and foremost on her characters. "I would have called it Cairene Stories," she remarked, "but the publisher thought I was crazy." The stories transcend geographical boundaries, and have universal appeal.

Her most recent book, In Their Father's Country, is also set in Cairo, and follows the lives of two sisters from childhood to old age. When asked what the novel is about, she deferred to readers' comments: "a woman in difficult circumstances;" "a minority living in Egypt;" "a socity in decline." And then she hinted the title holds a clue. In Their Father's Country, suggests alienation or estrangement in one's own home.

Anne-Marie Drosso is the fourth author in The Friends of the Library's Meet the Author series. The series will break for summer and resume in September.