Leilah Nadir grew up in England and Canada with an Iraqi father and an English mother. She has a master's degree in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh and a joint honours bachelor's degree in English and history from McGill University. She has worked in London and Vancouver in the publishing industry. Since the invasion of Iraq, she has written and broadcast political commentaries for the CBC, The Globe and Mail and the Georgia Straight, and published a feature article in Brick magazine. Her memoir The Orange Trees of Baghdad came out in Canada in 2007, and has since been published in Australia, Italy, France and Turkey.
Leilah Nadir lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.