Maged Zaher was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. He has lived in the US since 1995, and has published several books of poetry and translations. In 2013, Zaher won the Genius Award for Literature from The Stranger in Seattle. He has performed his work at Subtext, Bumbershoot, the Kootenay School of Writing, St. Marks Project, Evergreen State College, and The American University in Cairo. He edited and translated The Tahrir of Poems: Seven Contemporary Egyptian Poets (Alice Blue, 2014), featuring writers from the Arab Spring.