Who is Riz Ahmed's wife, best-selling author Fatima Farheen Mirza?


Sophie Prideaux
  • English
  • Arabic

He may not have won the Oscar for Best Actor at Sunday night's ceremony, but Riz Ahmed won many hearts with his sweet gesture to his wife as the couple made their red-carpet debut.

Ahmed and his wife, Fatima Farheen Mirza, made their first public appearance together at the 93rd Academy Awards, but the Sound of Metal star showed he was well-versed in red-carpet-husband protocol, asking photographers to wait for a second as he tenderly swept Mirza's hair into place behind her shoulders.

After helping his wife fix her hair, he joked: “I’m the official groomer.”

If there was an award on the night for cutest red-carpet moment, he would have taken it.

The couple have kept their relationship low-key since getting married in 2020. And while Ahmed is a rising star, becoming the first Muslim to be nominated in the Best Actor category at Sunday's ceremony for his role as a drummer who loses his hearing in the acclaimed Sound of Metal, Mirza's career is equally as impressive.

Who is Fatima Farheen Mirza, Riz Ahmed’s wife?

Mirza is an award-winning author, releasing her debut novel, A Place for Us, in 2018. The book, published under Sarah Jessica Parker's imprint, SJP For Hogarth, became an instant bestseller, earning her a place in the 5 Under 35 Honourees list by the National Book Foundation.

The book tells the story of an Indian-American family, which Mirza said in an interview with The Guardian was "a long love letter to the life that was mine right until I started writing it".

"It's through the novel that I can understand that dynamic between the individual and their greater community with so much more complexity than when I was in it. It’s helped me understand where I’ve come from and who I am and what is important to me," she said.

The author was born in California in 1991. Her father is from Hyderabad, India, while her mother is from Birmingham, England, born to British-Indian parents.

How did they meet?

Ahmed may be a movie star, but his personal life also sounds like something straight out of a film. The British-Pakistani actor, 38, recently opened up about his meet-cute with Mirza.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show, Ahmed explained how the couple first met in a Brooklyn coffee shop, close to where Mirza lived.

"We met so randomly, while I was preparing for Sound of Metal, when I was in New York. We just both sat down at the same table in a cafe, where we both turned up to write. We were both jostling over the same laptop plug points, like a very modern way of meeting," he explained.

“We struck up a friendship and then we reconnected down the line. But it’s weirdly one of the many things about preparing for this role that was so special. It just brought a lot of goodness into my life.”

Their backyard pandemic wedding

While the pair have not said much about their pandemic wedding, Ahmed did reveal a few details about the “intimate” ceremony in an interview earlier this year.

"I guess because we live in a social-media age, if you don't get on the megaphone about stuff, it's like it's a secret? But I never know how much is oversharing," Ahmed said on The Tonight Show.

"It was kind of interesting, doing it with Covid and everything going on, obviously kept it super-intimate and socially distanced. It was just hardly anyone there, did it in a backyard, which was nice in lots of ways. I think the nicest thing about it was, you didn't have 500 aunties hanging around you, pinching your cheeks.

"No disrespect to the aunties, but Asian weddings are big, and you've always got these people crawling out of the woodwork."

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While you're here

Empire of Enchantment: The Story of Indian Magic

John Zubrzycki, Hurst Publishers

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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F1 The Movie

Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Rating: 4/5

ICC men's cricketer of the year

2004 - Rahul Dravid (IND) ; 2005 - Jacques Kallis (SA) and Andrew Flintoff (ENG); 2006 - Ricky Ponting (AUS); 2007 - Ricky Ponting; 2008 - Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI); 2009 - Mitchell Johnson (AUS); 2010 - Sachin Tendulkar (IND); 2011 - Jonathan Trott (ENG); 2012 - Kumar Sangakkara (SL); 2013 - Michael Clarke (AUS); 2014 - Mitchell Johnson; 2015 - Steve Smith (AUS); 2016 - Ravichandran Ashwin (IND); 2017 - Virat Kohli (IND); 2018 - Virat Kohli; 2019 - Ben Stokes (ENG); 2021 - Shaheen Afridi

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Nepotism is the name of the game

Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad. 

The results of the first round are as follows:

Qais Saied (Independent): 18.4 per cent

Nabil Karoui (Qalb Tounes): 15.58 per cent

Abdelfattah Mourou (Ennahdha party): 12.88 per cent

Abdelkarim Zbidi (two-time defence minister backed by Nidaa Tounes party): 10.7 per cent

Youssef Chahed (former prime minister, leader of Long Live Tunisia): 7.3 per cent

Results
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Pharaoh's curse

British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.

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Global state-owned investor ranking by size

1.

United States

2.

China

3.

UAE

4.

Japan

5

Norway

6.

Canada

7.

Singapore

8.

Australia

9.

Saudi Arabia

10.

South Korea

Company profile

Date started: 2015

Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki

Based: Dubai

Sector: Online grocery delivery

Staff: 200

Funding: Undisclosed, but investors include the Jabbar Internet Group and Venture Friends

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
How being social media savvy can improve your well being

Next time when procastinating online remember that you can save thousands on paying for a personal trainer and a gym membership simply by watching YouTube videos and keeping up with the latest health tips and trends.

As social media apps are becoming more and more consumed by health experts and nutritionists who are using it to awareness and encourage patients to engage in physical activity.

Elizabeth Watson, a personal trainer from Stay Fit gym in Abu Dhabi suggests that “individuals can use social media as a means of keeping fit, there are a lot of great exercises you can do and train from experts at home just by watching videos on YouTube”.

Norlyn Torrena, a clinical nutritionist from Burjeel Hospital advises her clients to be more technologically active “most of my clients are so engaged with their phones that I advise them to download applications that offer health related services”.

Torrena said that “most people believe that dieting and keeping fit is boring”.

However, by using social media apps keeping fit means that people are “modern and are kept up to date with the latest heath tips and trends”.

“It can be a guide to a healthy lifestyle and exercise if used in the correct way, so I really encourage my clients to download health applications” said Mrs Torrena.

People can also connect with each other and exchange “tips and notes, it’s extremely healthy and fun”.

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
  • NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
  • 600-seat auditorium
  • Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
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  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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Our legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Sui Dhaaga: Made in India

Director: Sharat Katariya

Starring: Varun Dhawan, Anushka Sharma, Raghubir Yadav

3.5/5

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The Byblos iftar in numbers

29 or 30 days – the number of iftar services held during the holy month

50 staff members required to prepare an iftar

200 to 350 the number of people served iftar nightly

160 litres of the traditional Ramadan drink, jalab, is served in total

500 litres of soup is served during the holy month

200 kilograms of meat is used for various dishes

350 kilograms of onion is used in dishes

5 minutes – the average time that staff have to eat
 

Match info

Australia 580
Pakistan 240 and 335

Result: Australia win by an innings and five runs

Remaining fixtures

Third-place-play-off: Portugal v Mexico, 4pm on Sunday

Final: Chile v Germany, 10pm on Sunday

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
'The worst thing you can eat'

Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.

Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines: 

Baked goods - Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat.

Snacks - Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavour the popcorn.

Fried food - Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process.

Refrigerator dough - Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts.

Creamer and margarine - Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.

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Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

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