Life as a Middle Eastern Woman Outside the Stereotypes: Alya Mooro

I recently caught up with Alya Mooro, Cairo-born, London-based journalist, and author of The Greater Freedom: Life as a Middle Eastern Woman Outside the Stereotypes.

We talked to Alya about her multi-cultural childhood, why she wouldn’t let the world define her, and why multi-faceted representation of Middle Eastern women matters. Here’s her story:

Newnham: Can you tell us about your background — what were you like growing up in Egypt?

Mooro: My childhood consisted of a lot of moving around. I was born in Cairo and lived there until I was five, Geneva until I was eight then London until I was twelve at which point my family moved back to Cairo for a year, then back to London, where I’ve lived ever since.

Moving around so much was very unsettling and in typical teen angst I was livid at my parents for subjecting me to always being the new girl at school. In hindsight, I’m happy I had the opportunity to build full lives in both Cairo and London. That insight and the fact that I essentially have a bird’s eye view to both cultures is in part what has allowed me to write The Greater Freedom.

Newnham: Can you tell us how you found the transition to a different country and culture?

Mooro: My family are very ‘open-minded’ but there were a few differences that came into focus quickly. When I was in my early teens, many of my English friends had boyfriends and were allowed out at what seemed to be all hours of the day and night. I wasn’t allowed the same freedoms and I remember my mum often saying to me: “we don’t do these things.” I struggled to understand who this ‘we’ was, when in many ways I didn’t feel all that different to my friends.

Moving around so much, writing was always my constant and I would take pen to paper in an effort to figure out what I was feeling and what I was thinking; it was my own form of therapy. It wasn’t something I thought I could do as a career until I got a bit older and started meeting creatives of all different industries, who were following their passions and turning them into jobs. I was inspired, and haven’t looked back since.

Newnham: Tell us about your book, The Greater Freedom. What made you write it and…