Juliana Maio

Juliana Maio (born in Heliopolis/Cairo, Egypt in 1953, expelled from there with her family during the 1956 Suez crisis and moved to L.A.) – Raised and educated in France after her family’s exile. The family later emigrated to the United States, where Maio completed her higher education: B.A., University of California, Berkeley and J.D., UC Hastings College of the Law (now the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. Practising lawyer (entertainment law) and studio executive in Los Angeles. She worked for 10 years on this one book, going through many drafts.

City of the Sun takes place in Cairo during WW2, with competition between American and Nazi operatives seeking a Jewish nuclear scientist hiding out in the city’s Jewish community. Key protagonist named Maya Blumenthal. For a study of Jews and espionage in fiction, City of the Sun is an unusual example because it places Jewish characters and refugee scientists at the center of an intelligence thriller set in the Arab world rather than in Europe or the United States. [Google/AI]

Maio, Juliana, (City of the Sun) [hc, Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2014] 978-1626340671  [pb, Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2014]) 978-1626340510