Ezzedine Choukri Fishere () (born 1966 in Kuwait City) is an Egyptian novelist, diplomat and academic. Early life and career Ezzedine was born to Egyptian parents working in Kuwait. At the age of two, he returned to Egypt with his mother and siblings while his father stayed back in Kuwait to support the family. Fishere grew up in Mansura, a quiet town by the Nile. Bright at school, he graduated from Mansoura Secondary School in Dakahlia at the age of 16 and was among the top ten students in the country (1983). In 1987, he graduated from the political science department at Cairo University, and joined Al-Ahram Centre for Political Studies. Two years later, he had completed his military service and joined the Foreign Service. In 1992, he obtained an International Diploma in Administration from École Nationale d'Administration in Paris, then a Masters in International Relations in 1995 from the University of Ottawa, and finally a PhD in political science from Université de Montréal in 1998 Fishere worked intermittently as an Egyptian diplomat. In 1989, he served in the cabinet of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel from 1999 to 2001, and as a counselor to the Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit from 2005 to 2007. He also worked as a political advisor to the United Nations Special Envoy to the Middle East during the Second Intifada (2001-2004). He then joined the UN Advance Mission to Sudan UNAMIS and contributed to establishing the first UN peacekeeping mission in that country after the signing of the Naivasha peace agreement in 2005. During his year in Sudan, Fishere served as the UN's focal point for the Darfur negotiations in Addis Ababa, Ndjamena and Abuja. Fishere also served as the political advisor to the 2004 UN fact-finding mission to Lebanon investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. In 2007, Fishere left the diplomatic service and started teaching political science at the American University in Cairo He also wrote frequently for the press, both in Arabic and in English. When Egyptians took to Tahrir Square en masse in 2011, Fishere joined the revolutionary wave and became one of its most recognisable faces as an analyst, political adviser to key presidential candidates and a widely-read columnist. In 2011, the first Transitional Government asked him to lead the "Supreme Council for Culture" with a view to restructuring it.