Prof Islam Issa is a multi-award-winning writer, broadcaster, and curator, recently named by the BBC as “one of the UK’s most significant new thinkers”. Islam has featured on TV and radio more than 100 times on over 50 different stations worldwide. A regular contributor to the BBC, he has hosted such radio programmes as Free Thinking and four Sunday Feature documentaries, including a cultural history of the Balcony. He presented the well-received BBC television documentary Cleopatra and Me: In Search of a Lost Queen and has featured on history shows on the BBC and Netflix.

Islam has written a landmark history of the city of Alexandria (published in 2023 in the UK, 2024 in the USA and forthcoming in several languages). He is a professor of Literature & History at Birmingham City University, he has also authored several academic books including Shakespeare and Terrorism and Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, and contributes regularly to such outlets as The Guardian, New Statesman, and Times Literary Supplement. He has curated a number of internationally celebrated public exhibitions at prestigious venues including Shakespeare’s Birthplace. His accolades include the Times Higher Education’s “Research Project of the Year” and the Milton Society of America’s “Outstanding First Book Award”.

Click here to view Islam’s media kit.