Ameena Hussein is an author and co-founder of the Perera-Hussein Publishing House, the frontrunner for cutting edge literature from emerging and established regional authors.
Her non-fiction book on the fourteenth century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, Chasing Tall Tales and Mystics: Ibn Battuta in Sri Lanka published end 2020 won the State Literary Prize for Humanities and was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize. Her novel The Moon in the Water was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Award and the Dublin IMPAC. Her debut short story collection Fifteen was shortlisted for the Gratiaen Prize in 1999 and her second collection of short stories Zillij won the State Literary Prize in 2005. She has compiled and edited three popular collections of children’s stories and a collection of stories for adults.