JEAN SAID MAKDISI is a Palestinian writer and scholar. She was born in Jerusalem to a Palestinian family and was raised in Egypt before leaving to study in the U.S. and the UK. In 1972, Makdisi moved to Beirut, Lebanon, where she taught English and humanities at Beirut University College. She remained in Beirut throughout the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 Lebanon War; her observations of Beirut's decline would inform her first book, the memoir Beirut Fragments, published by Persea Books in 1989. In 2005, she published Teta, Mother, and Me, and she has served as co-editor for two more books: My Life in the PLO by Shafiq Al-Hout (2010) and Arab Feminisms (2013), which she edited along with Noha Bayoumi and Rafif Rida Sidawi. Makdisi lives in Beirut.