Mayada Ibrahim

Mayada Ibrahim – Editor

Editor of prize-winning literary fiction. Formerly at Bloomsbury Publishing. Arabic-to-English translator.

Overview

I provide copyediting, proofreading, developmental editing, and editorial feedback services to authors and publishers such as Borough Press, Avon, HarperNorth, Headline, HarperVoyager, and Bloomsbury Publishing.


Before working independently, I was an editor for Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP), a joint venture between Bloomsbury Publishing and Qatar Foundation. We were committed to publishing from the outside and the inside of established communities of writing. I collaborated with distinguished and emerging writers editing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and children’s literature.

I worked with Mai Al-Nakib on her collection of short stories, The Hidden Light of Objects, which won the Edinburgh International Book Festival's First Book Award. We also published Saud Alsanousi's English debut, The Bamboo Stalk, which addressed xenophobia in the Gulf and garnered international coverage in the New Yorker, the Independent, and the Guardian.

My published Arabic to English translations include 26 Micro Stories by Mahmoud Shukair (Banipal Magazine, UK), Two Thieves Emerge from the Sea in the City of Padua by Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin (Willows House, South Sudan), Time for Bed, Fred by Yasmeen Ismail (Bloomsbury Publishing, UK), and a poem on Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology by Adil Babikir (University of Nebraska Press, US).


Services
Fiction
Anthologies Contemporary Fiction LGBTQ Fiction Literary Fiction Short Story
Non-Fiction
Art Sociology
Languages
English (UK) English (US)

Work experience

Self-employed

Nov, 2015 — Present

Bloomsbury Publishing Qatar Foundation (BQFP)

Jan, 2014 — Nov, 2015 (almost 2 years)

Self-employed

Mar, 2010 — Present

Portfolio

Beirut, Beirut

Sonallah Ibrahim

Based on the author’s real-life experience of the civil war in Lebanon, Beirut, Beirut is an exploration of how, even in the midst of chaos and violence, universals such as love, desire and yearning are still always our guiding forces.
The Bamboo Stalk

Saud Alsanousi

Josephine Mendoza escapes poverty by coming to Kuwait from the Philippines to work as a maid, where she meets Rashid, an idealistic only son with literary aspirations. Josephine, with all the wide-eyed naivety of youth, believes she has found true love. But wh... read more
The Movement

Ayisha Malik

'Powerful and profound' Daisy Buchanan'Breathtakingly original... a searing examination of the modern world and its sensibilities' Imran Mahmood__With words come power. But do you speak out or shut up? Everywhere Sara Javed goes - online or outside - everyone ... read more
Little Boxes

Cecilia Knapp

‘Cecilia Knapp is a great writer. I love her’ KAE TEMPEST ‘Unmissable’ STYLIST ‘A really gripping read’ TIMES RADIO ‘Little Boxes is a powerful, vivid and enchanting debut’ SALENA GODDEN ‘Cecilia Knapp is a rare, rare talent. The sort of writer you get excited... read more
Wild Fires

Sophie Jai

Grief is like an inside joke: you have to have been there to really get it. The only things Cassandra knows about her family are the stories she’s heard in snatches over the years: about the aunt and cousin she never got to meet, about the man from the folded-... read more
Weyward

Emilia Hart

THEY TRIED TO CAGE US. BUT A WEYWARD WOMAN BELONGS TO THE WILD. WE CANNOT BE TAMED. ‘Humming with a sly, exhilarating magic’ Bridget Collins, author of The Binding In 2019, Kate flees an abusive relationship in London for Crows Beck, a remote Cumbrian village.... read more
Bitter Almonds

Lilas Taha

‘A LOVE STORY AND AN ENTHRALLING MIX OF HISTORY AND PALESTINIAN CULTURE… RIVETING’ - The Lady 'A BEAUTIFUL AND MOVING TRIBUTE TO THE ENDURING POWER OF LOVE' - Ann Weisgarber, The Personal History of Rachel Dupree He is orphaned at birth, born into displacement... read more
To define Nigeria is to tell a half-truth. Many have tried, but most have concluded that it is impossible to capture the true scope and significance of Africa’s most populous nation through words or images. Yet here, through personal essays from twenty-four of... read more
The Empire rules by blood Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control. Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance. Clear is the blood of the servants, of the crushed, of the invisible. The Aktibar – a set of trials held every ten year... read more
The first in a supernatural new series from the author of Wonderland, Her Majesty's Royal Coven follows a top secret government department of witches and the deadly threat to the nation that they must confront. 'Juno Dawson is at the top of her game in this vi... read more
Extinction

Bradley Somer

In a lonely valley, deep in the mountains, a ranger watches over the last surviving grizzly bear. With the natural world exhausted and in tatters, Ben has dedicated himself to protecting this single fragment of the wild. One night, he hears voices in the valle... read more
The Bingo Hall Detectives

Jonathan Whitelaw

Eyes down to find a killer who’s playing to win... An irresistible slice of murder and mystery – there’s a killer on the loose in the Lake District, and the members of the Penrith Bingo Club have decided they’re the ones to catch the culprit... Jason Brazel is... read more
The Thirteenth Girl

Sarah Goodwin

A little girl in a white nightdress stands out in the snow, watching the large brick house burn before her eyes... My name is Lucy Townsend. I was born on Friday the thirteenth, and I was the thirteenth girl living in the big house. Unlucky for some. But I was... read more
Land of No Rain

Amjad Nasser

Land of No Rain takes place in Hamiya, a fictional Arab country run by military commanders who treat power as a personal possession to be handed down from one generation to the next. The main character was forced into exile from Hamiya twenty years earlier for... read more
A moving novel of identity, extremism, culture and generational change set in modern-day Morocco.
Corsair: (English Edn)

Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud

It's the early part of the nineteenth century and the Arabian Peninsula and the waters surrounding it are ablaze. Piracy in the Gulf threatens global maritime trade routes while the Wahabbi strain of Islam is conquering followers town by town across the region... read more
A Sudanese writer begins to suspect that one of his most idiosyncratic characters from a recent novel resembles – in an uncanny, terrifying way – a real person he has never met. Since he condemned this character to an untimely death in the novel, should he att... read more
Meet Fred-a mischievous, playful, loving dog. It's time for Fred to go to bed . . . but Fred really, really doesn't want to! From hiding up in trees, to splashing in muddy puddles, to hiding behind bookshelves, Fred will do anything to avoid bedtime. He would ... read more
Politics enters the lives of every family in Palestine. In this literary historical tour de force, Suad Amiry traces the lives of individual members of Palestinian families and, through them, the histories of both Palestine and the émigré Palestinian community... read more
When Sophia Al-Maria's mother sends her away from rainy Washington State to stay with her husband's desert-dwelling Bedouin family in Qatar, she intends it to be a sort of teenage cultural boot camp. What her mother doesn't know is that there are some things a... read more
Telepathy

Amir Tag Elsir

A Sudanese writer begins to suspect that one of his most idiosyncratic characters from a recent novel resembles--in an uncanny, terrifying way--a real person he has never met. Since he condemned this character to an untimely death in the novel, should he attem... read more
A group of disparate individuals find themselves together, each on a personal mission to summit Kilimanjaro. Hailing from Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and America, the characters test the limits of their physical and emotional strength to prove to themselves and ... read more

Mayada has 9 reviews

Professionalism

Quality

Value

Responsiveness

Michel K.

Michel K.

Jul, 2021

Mayada did an amazing job with proofreading my manuscript. Her care and attention to detail was excellent and I am grateful for this. She also made wonderful suggestions. I will without hesitation like to work with her again if the opportunity arises. I certainly would recommend any authors to work with her if given that opportunity.
Tasha M.

Tasha M.

Jun, 2021

I loved working with Mayada! Her Editorial was so encouraging and uplifting, making me feel that I am really called to go after this line of work! Super excited that she was my first wver editor!
Georgie G.

Georgie G.

May, 2021

I would not work with this editor/proof reader again!! I paid 400£ for her to edit my work and as I read through it, she has left edits mistakes, even made edit mistakes in EVERY chapter, which is unacceptable as I MYSELF have to go through this again!! I cannot believe this but I would suggest not working with her as she doesn’t know how to edit or just doesn’t care about people’s writings
Sonya B.

Sonya B.

Nov, 2020

Mayada gave me an excellent sensitivity reading which will be enormously helpful as I rewrite. Highly recommend!
Jarryd C.

Jarryd C.

Aug, 2019

Mayada completed the job requested, to an excellent standard. She has a keen eye for details and made some great suggestions.

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