| Leila Al Mutawa | |
| Native Name: | ليلى المطوع |
| Native Name Lang: | ar |
| Birth Place: | Muharraq, Bahrain |
| Occupation: | journalist, novelist, author |
| Notable Works: | My Heart Is Not for Sale |
Leila Al Mutawa (Arabic: ليلى المطوع, born in 1987 in Muharraq) is a Bahraini novelist and journalist. She is known for writing novels centering frankly on the female perspective in a society with strong fundamentalist elements.[1]
Born in Muharraq in 1987 to a devout family, she began reading avidly after receiving a library of masterpieces from her father upon his death, which was supplemented by her mother's book and magazine purchases. At the age of ten, she wrote an article about the danger of tobacco addiction, but was reluctant to become a writer. Moving alone at twenty to the United Arab Emirates, she met a friend whose story inspired the disastrous marriage in her debut novel, written starting in 2008 and published in 2012. Her debut novel was قلبي ليس للبيع ("My Heart Is Not for Sale").[2]
She participated in the International Prize for Arabic Fiction[3] "Booker" workshop in 2016, and was chosen in 2019 to participate in the book "How many lungs for the coast " by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization "UNESCO", and the book was published in 2020. She was a guest at the "Sharjah International Book[4] " in 2020, and was chosen in 2021 to participate in the "Lyon Literature Festival".[5]