For as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in the ways we think and talk about other cultures—and indeed, whether ‘other’ cultures are truly ‘other.’ In part, that fascination grew out of a childhood spent shuttling between the Midwest and Asia: I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, but every couple years, my family would move abroad, spending years in Iran, India, Afghanistan, Egypt and Italy.
As an undergraduate at Yale, I became interested in studying the construction of the Other in literature, and went on to get an M.Phil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and a degree from Columbia University School of Journalism.
I started my journalistic career at Newsweek Magazine in the 1990s, focusing on Muslim societies, global social issues and culture, reporting from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Since leaving Newsweek, I have written for a wide range of publications, from Vogue and Time to The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, and Foreign Policy.
My first book, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran (Henry Holt, 2015), an account of my year spent studying with the traditional Islamic scholar Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
My second book, Home, Land Security: Deradicalization and the Journey Back from Extremism, was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize.
My latest book, The Lady Imam, is an intersectional biography of one of the most influential Islamic woman scholars of today, amina wadud. The Lady Imam will be available June 16, 2026.
I live in London, with my husband Antony, and occasionally, with my twenty-something daughters Julia and Nic.