Suleika Jaouad

Suleika Jaouad ( ; ; born July 5, 1988) is an American writer, advocate, and motivational speaker. She is the author of the "Life, Interrupted" column in The New York Times and has also written for Vogue, Glamour, NPR's All Things Considered and Women's Health. Her 2021 memoir Between Two Kingdoms, covering her struggle with leukemia, was a New York Times Best Seller. Her second book, The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, was published on April 22, 2025.

Early life and education Jaouad was born in New York City to a Muslim father from Tunisia and a Catholic mother from Switzerland. Her father, Hédi, taught French at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Her mother, Anne, is an artist. Her TED Talk, entitled "What almost dying taught me about living," was released in June 2019.

Between Two Kingdoms

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted is a memoir published in 2021 by Random House

In the book, Jaouad revisits her life before and after her cancer diagnosis "to forge a path forward after remission. Drawing on journals, medical records, letters, e-mails, and interviews with many of those who appear across its pages, Jaouad's memoir details her early symptoms, initial diagnosis and then, in great detail, the physical, mental, and emotional toll cancer takes on her and those around her."

The book was generally well received by critics, including starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Writing for Library Journal, Barrie Olmstead wrote, "Jaouad does a beautiful job of writing from this place of 'dual citizenship,' where she finds pain but also joy, kinship, and possibility." According to NPR Heller McAlpin, "Jaouad's book stands out not only because she has lived to parse the saga of her medical battle with the benefit of hindsight, but also because it encompasses the less familiar tale of what it's like to survive and have to figure out how to live again." Shelf Awareness explained, Though heavy, Jaouad's story is steeped in a wry optimism. This is in part because readers know Jaouad will survive to write this book, but it is also a testament to what makes Between Two Kingdoms so compelling: Jaouad's uncanny ability to reach into her pain and turn it into something else. She does not deny or gloss over the challenges of her diagnosis or the gut-wrenching torture of some of her treatments, yet she reckons with ways these impossible years of her life forged her into the woman she has since become.

Booklist also provided a positive review for the audiobook, noting, "Jaouad, reading her own work, is a sympathetic and appealing narrator. Although she tells a difficult and painful story, her thoughtful tone never wavers toward anger or bitterness. Instead, she describes difficult subjects patiently, only adding emphasis to conversations to convey the truly fraught nature of their subjects."

Personal life Jaouad is married to musician Jon Batiste, with whom she has been in a relationship since 2014. In April 2022, the couple revealed in a television interview that they had married in February 2022.

When Jaouad was diagnosed with a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia in 2011, doctors said she had only a 35% chance of surviving. A video based on the column received an Emmy award. In December 2021, Jaouad announced that her cancer had returned and she had undergone a second bone marrow transplant. The cancer returned for a third time in the summer of 2024.

In 2023, she was featured in the documentary film American Symphony, directed by Matthew Heineman, which captures her fight against the return of her cancer while her husband, Jon Batiste, was composing his first symphony.

Awards