Suad Amiry, born in Damascus in 1951, is a writer, architect and founder of the Riwaq Centre for Architectural Conservation, an organisation created in 1991 to preserve Palestinian architecture and collective memory through documentation and restoration projects.
Suad Amiry studied architecture at the American University of Beirut, the University of Michigan and also at the University of Edinburgh, where she received her PhD. Later, in 1981, she returned to Ramallah to teach at Birzeit University.
Her literary vocation arose in 2001 by chance, as the author states. Some of her notable titles are: Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: War Diaries from Ramallah, Palestine, 2003; Earthquake in April, 2003; Menopausal Palestine: Women At The Edge, 2010; Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey With Murad, 2010.
The architect was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in Washington D.C. from 1991 to 1993. She then held several senior positions within the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, and in 2006, she was appointed vice-chair of the Board of Trustees of Birzeit University.
