Islam Issa is a multi-award-winning author, broadcaster, and curator. A literary critic and historian, his work focuses on the reception of early modern English literature in global contexts, and the cultural history of the Middle East.

Islam has authored six books, the award winning Alexandria was published this year and is a Sunday Times Best Seller.  Other book titles Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, Milton in Translation, Digital Milton, Shakespeare and Terrorism, Milton Across Borders and Media, and Alexandria: The City that Changed the World.

He has curated three exhibitions: the internationally acclaimed Stories of Sacrifice, and Shakespeare in South Asia and Ageless Cleopatra, both at Shakespeare’s Birthplace.

He has presented the TV documentary Cleopatra and Me (BBC Four) and four radio documentaries: Shakespeare and Terrorism, The Balcony, Forbidden Fruit, and Shakespeare’s Brum Ting (BBC Radio 3). He has featured on such networks as BBC Two, History Channel, and Netflix.

His awards include the Times Higher Education Research Project of the Year, the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award, the Milton Society of America First Book Award and Irene Samuel Memorial Award, the Muslim News Awards Excellence in Community Relations prize, and the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Future Face of Birmingham: Public Sector and Education. To date, he has secured funding totalling over £1 million.

The university’s Researcher of the Year for two consecutive years, he joined Birmingham City University in 2015 after receiving his PhD from the University of Birmingham, where he also worked as Visiting Lecturer and Teaching Fellow

Islam is represented by Hilary, who can be contacted at [email protected]