Aya Sabi

Aya Sabi (born 1995 in Roermond, The Netherlands) is a Belgian, Dutch and Moroccan writer and columnist.

Early life and education Sabi was born in the Netherlands and moved to Limburg, Belgium at age thirteen. In her youth, she mainly wrote poetry and participated in several writing contests. At age 13, she sent a manuscript it to several publishers. She studied Biomedical Sciences at Maastricht University and attained a Master in Arabic and Islamic Studies from KU Leuven.

In 2022, Sabi published her first novel Half Leven, a family chronicle following three generations of Moroccan women searching for identity, connection and emancipation.

In 2025, she published Zo zingt de pijn: Van intergenerationeel trauma naar intergenerationele troost, which consists of essays about intergenerational consolation and how trauma might be healed in a non-verbal, bodily manner. The book touches on her chronic stress and PMOS-diagnosis. Together with actress and theater producer Dounia Mahammed, she reworked the piece into a theater monologue titled Dit is (niet) de evolutietheorie van de troost. She previously wrote for the NTGent magazine.

Activism and controversy In 2017, Sabi had a Twitter discussion with Belgian's State Secretary for Asylum, Migration Theo Francken about the changes to the Belgian Immigration Act. This interaction gathered international attention and was covered in The New York Times. The cafe owner then changed the name, albeit noting that "some people these days are quick to get indignant and take offence."