Bayoumi completed his Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He is co-editor of The Edward Said Reader (Vintage, 2002),[3] editor of Midnight on the Mavi Marmara: The Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and How It Changed the Course of the Israeli/Palestine Conflict (first published by OR Books, trade edition by Haymarket Books, 2010) and has published academic essays in publications including Transition, Interventions, the Yale Journal of Criticism,[4] Amerasia, Arab Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Asian American Studies.