Alexandra Chreiteh

Sinno, Nadine (25 November 2015). "Milk and Honey, Tabbūleh, and Coke: Orientalist, Local, and Global Discourses in Alexandra Chreiteh's Dāyman Coca-Cola". Middle Eastern Literatures. 18 (2): 122–143. doi:10.1080/1475262X.2015.1110890.

Chreiteh's creative work is originally in Arabic. Her work focuses on the intimate zones of conflict in post-war Lebanon. It breaks taboos as it deals with women and sexuality in environments that negotiate tradition and modernity. Her fresh narratives, the unique ironic-humorous style she voices, as well as her radical use of language, make her stand out in the literary landscape. Chreiteh has been a speaker in major literary festivals such as The Solothurn Festival of Literature in Solothurn, Switzerland (2012) and the Shubbak Festival of Arabic Literature, speaking on “Queerness and Queer Characters in Arabic Literature” in The British Library, London, United Kingdom (2017).

In 2010, Chreiteh published her second novel, Ali and His Russian Mother [ʻAlī wa-ummuhu al-Rūsīyah]. Like Always Coca-Cola, it was translated to English by Michelle Hartman who maintained Chreiteh's omission of chapters or subheadings in favour of a "continuous flow of words". The story takes place in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War. The protagonist is a young homosexual Lebanese man who discovers that one of his ancestors was Jewish.

Alexandra Chreiteh was born in Moscow, Russia and was raised in a religiously conservative region in Lebanon by her Russian mother and Lebanese father. Chreiteh completed her bachelor's degree in English Literature at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon. In Fall 2009, after being granted a graduate fellowship by Yale University, she commenced her PhD in Comparative Literature. While at Yale, Chreiteh has completed her Masters of Arts as well as a Masters of Philosophy in Comparative Literature. She graduated with a PhD in 2016. Among other literature and film classes, Chreiteh taught creative writing at Yale's iconic Daily Themes course.

The manuscript, which drew offers from three publishers, was first released in May 2009 and English translation by Michelle Hartman followed in 2012. It received favourable reviews for shedding an intimate light on the lives of Arab women. According to Chreiteh, she "wasn't trying to write something extraordinary - it's just the people you see every day".