Later novels would focus on diverse subjects, such as British Surrealism ( Exquisite Corpse) and Satanism in Swinging London ( Satan Wants Me). The Arabian Nightmare, which was inspired by Jan Potocki's The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. This includes his first, the acclaimed dark fantasy novel Many of Irwin's novels focus on Arabic themes. He has published a history of Orientalism and is an acknowledged expert on The Arabian Nights. Irwin is currently a research associate at SOAS, and the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement. He gave up academic life in 1977 in order to write fiction, while continuing to lecture part-time at Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS. From 1972 he was a lecturer in medieval history at the University of St.

During his studies, he converted to Islam and spent some time in a dervish monastery in Algeria. His thesis was on the Mamluk reconquest of the Crusader states, but he failed to complete it. Irwin attended Epsom College, read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. He is also the editor of The New Cambridge History of Islam vol.Robert Graham Irwin (born 23 August 1946) is a British historian, novelist, and writer on Arabic literature. He is the author of ten works of non-fiction: The Middle East in the Middle Ages (1984), The Arabian Nights: A Companion (1994), Islamic Art (1997), Night and Horses and the Desert: The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature (1999), The Alhambra (2004), For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies (2006), Camel (2010), Mamluks and Crusaders (2010), Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights (2010), and Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties (2011). He has published six novels: The Arabian Nightmare (1983), The Limits of Vision (1986), The Mysteries of Algiers (1988), Exquisite Corpse (1995), Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh (1997) and Satan Wants Me (1999). He is a fellow of The Royal Society of Literature. He is the commissioning editor for The Times Literary Suupplement for The Middle East and writes for a number of newspapers and journals in the UK and the USA.

He also lectured on Arabic and Middle Eastern History at the universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford. He read Modern History at Oxford and taught Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction.200 Significant SF Books by Women, 1984-2001.

The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin