Ayanna Nahmias was born in 1964 in Florida into a military Christian family, but was subsequently raised Muslim. The eldest of three children, her father studied and earned his degree in physics and mathematics, while her mother taught English. In 1970 her radical, Islamist father who had a deep hatred for American values and culture moved the family to Nigeria where they lived in Ile Ife, Osun State before moving to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Several years later, her mother fled from her husband’s oppressive and tyrannical rule, and returned to the United States with Ayanna and her siblings. Ayanna completed high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and received a Benjamin E. Mays academic scholarship to pursue her secondary education at Bates College in Maine. During her third year, she completed a semester abroad at The Centre for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, an exchange program at Oxford University. Upon her return to the States, she was awarded a Bachelors of Arts degree in English Literature from Bates College.
She subsequently relocated to Washington, DC where she established a partnership in an art gallery in the upscale Eastern Market neighborhood. Because of her refreshing yet controversial perspective on art, she was featured in a Washington Post news article.
Ayanna is marketing her first book, a memoir titled “Bahari Beach Dreams,” and is seeking literary representation. She currently lives in Arlington, Virginia and also publishes an internationally followed, highly rated and well reviewed blog titled, “Memoirs of a Cipher”. It explores the similarities between Islam and Judaism, and the challenges women face in trying to achieve feminist power within both systems.
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