Sadia Zulfiqar specializes in African literature, particularly African fiction post-1940, the Nigerian Biafran civil war, Islam and the African novel, with a critical emphasis on the politics of gender and sexualities, and decolonial methodologies. Her secondary research interests include the medical humanities and harem literature. Her work has appeared in Research in African Literatures (Indiana University Press), Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa (Taylor & Francis), and the Journal of Postcolonial Writing (Taylor & Francis).

Zulfiqar’s book Who is a Muslim Woman? Leila Aboulela, Histories and Fiction (forthcoming from Manchester University Press) is the first full-length study of the Sudanese-Scottish author Leila Aboulela, contextualising Aboulela’s work within both diasporic and African literary traditions. Zulfiqar is also co-editing a collection of essays on Aboulela, under contract with Manchester University Press and scheduled for release in 2027.

In 2022, Zulfiqar was an MIAS Fellow at New York University, USA, and a British Academy Fellow at Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK, 2023–2024. She completed her MLitt in Modern and Postmodern Literature and her PhD in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK.

At LUMS, Zulfiqar’s current course offerings include:

  • ENGL 3812: African Literature: Women Writing Back
  • ENGL 3192: The Wounded Storyteller: Women, Literature, and Medicine
  • ENGL 2212: Their Eyes Were Watching God: An Introduction to African American Literature
  • ENGL 2811: Re-thinking the Politics of Harem in Literature: Women, Islam, and Gendered Spaces
  • ENGL 3211: Ring Shout: The Slave Narrative and Its Legacy

She also curated the English Seminar Series at LUMS for three years (2020-2022; 2024-2025), inviting leading scholars of African literature from institutions worldwide, including the University of Oxford, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Manchester, University of Florida, Northeastern University, Brown University, American University (Washington, D.C.), University of Connecticut, Nottingham Trent University, and Université de Lomé, Togo.