Soueif's world-wide fame dates back to the publication of her 1992 novel In the Eye of the Sun. Following the tremendous success of her debut novel, Soueif's first collection of stories, Aisha, which had been published in 1983, brought her more popularity and resulted in the publication of a second collection of short stories entitled Sandpapers in 1996. In the same year, Soueif published Zinat al-Hayyah, a collection of short stories translated into Arabic that won a 1996 literary award. Soueif's second novel and fourth book, The Map of Love, was published in 1999 and was among the titles short-listed for the 1999 Booker Prize for Fiction.

Not only do the characters and events Soueif portrays live on in the mind of the reader once the narrative comes to its end, but also they extend to her subsequent works as well. The central characters Aisha in Aisha, Asya in In the Eye...