Ruqaya Izzidien

Ruqaya Izzidien is a Iraqi–Welsh freelance journalist, photographer and novelist. She lives in Morocco.

Ruqaya Izzidien grew up in rural Wales before studying Modern Languages at Durham University in 2005. As a journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English and the BBC. She lived in Gaza and Egypt before moving to Morocco where she currently resides.

In 2019, she was among six of the authors awarded the Betty Trask Awards for her debut novel "The Watermelon Boys", 2018 published by Hoopoe Fiction (AUC Press).

Novels

• The Watermelon Boys: A novel. Hoopoe, London 2018. ISBN 978-9774168802.