Raphael Cormack is a British writer and scholar of the Arab world and Assistant Professor of Arabic at Durham University. He obtained his PhD in Egyptian Theatre from the University of Edinburgh. He has also been a visiting researcher at Columbia University. He has written essays on Arab culture in outlets such as the LRB, Prospect and the TLS. He has also edited two anthologies titled The Book of Cairo and The Book of Khartoum.
Cormack is the author of Midnight in Cairo: The Female Stars of Egypt’s Roaring ’20s, an exploration of Cairo popular culture through personalities such as Rose Al-Youssef, Mounira al-Mahdiyya and Oum Kalthoum.
He is the son of Robin Cormack and historian Mary Beard. He is married to Pamela Takefman. [1] [2] [3] [4]
Denys Johnson-Davies was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer.
Taha Hussein was one of the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a figurehead for the Arab Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Arab world. His sobriquet was "The Dean of Arabic Literature" . He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twenty-one times.
Egyptian Jews constitute both one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. The historic core of the Jewish community in Egypt mainly consisted of Egyptian Arabic speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. Though Egypt had its own community of Egyptian Jews, after the Jewish expulsion from Spain more Sephardi and Karaite Jews began to migrate to Egypt, and then their numbers increased significantly with the growth of trading prospects after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As a result, Jews from many territories of the Ottoman Empire as well as Italy and Greece started to settle in the main cities of Egypt, where they thrived. The Ashkenazi community, mainly confined to Cairo's Darb al-Barabira quarter, began to arrive in the aftermath of the waves of pogroms that hit Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
Gamal al-Ghitani was an Egyptian author of historical and political novels and cultural and political commentaries and was the editor-in-chief of the literary periodical Akhbar Al-Adab till 2011.
Egyptian literature traces its beginnings to ancient Egypt and is some of the earliest known literature. Ancient Egyptians were the first to develop written literature, as inscriptions or in collections of papyrus, precursors to the modern book.
Azbakeya is one of the districts of the Western Area of Cairo, Egypt. Along with Wust Albalad (Downtown) and Abdeen, Azbakiya forms Cairo's 19th century expansion outside the medieval city walls known officially as Khedival Cairo and declared as an Area of Value. It holds many historically important buildings and spaces. One of these is the Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, which was inaugurated by Pope Mark VIII in 1800 and served as the seat of the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria from 1800 to 1971. Azbakeya was the place where the first Cairo Opera House was established, in 1869.
Sasson Somekh was an Israeli academic, writer and translator. He was professor emeritus of Modern Arab Literature at Tel Aviv University.
The Cairo International Book Fair is the largest and oldest book fair in the Arab world, held every year in the last week of January in Cairo, Egypt, at Egypt International Exhibitions Center in New Cairo, it is organised by the General Egyptian Book Organisation. The Fair is considered the most important event in the Arabic publishing world.
Mansoura Ez-Eldin is an Egyptian novelist and journalist.
Nawal Elsaadawi was an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician. She wrote numerous books on the subject of women in Islam, focusing on the practice of female genital mutilation in her society. She was described as "the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab World", and as "Egypt's most radical woman".
Radwa Ashour was an Egyptian novelist.
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's 900-page autobiography outlining his political views, has been translated into Arabic a number of times since the early 1930s.
The Young Egypt Party also known as the Green Shirts was a fascist Egyptian nationalist political party. It is notable for counting a young Anwar Sadat as a member.
Sahier al-Qalamawi was a significant literary figure and politician from Egypt who shaped Arabic writing and culture through her writing, feminist activism, and advocacy. She was one of the first women to attend Cairo University and in 1941 became the first Egyptian woman to earn her Master of Arts Degree and PhD for her work in Arabic literature. After graduating, she was employed by the university as their first woman lecturer. Al-Qalamawi was also one of the first women to hold a number of chief positions including chairperson of the Arabic Department at Cairo University, president of the Egyptian Feminist Union, and president of the League of Arab Women University Graduates. Her writings include two volumes of short stories, ten critical studies, and many translations from world literature.Aḥādīth jaddatī was published in 1935.
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer. His work explores language and identity in the context of Cairo, and reflects connections with the Arab-Islamic canon and world literature. He has worked in many genres in both Arabic and English, and is known for his essays and poems as well as his novels.
Fatima Rushdi was an Egyptian actress, singer, film director, and producer who was one of the pioneers of Egyptian cinema.
Mahmoud Kassem was an Alexandria-born writer, translator, film critic, and professor. He is best known for his literary verses of children's books, novels, essays, and literary and artistic encyclopaedias. He has received numerous Egyptian and Arabic awards in children's writing and radio drama, most recently the Best Literary Study Award entitled "Arabic Literature Written in French."
Mohamed Salahuddin Abdel-Sameeh Fadl was an Egyptian academic, writer, and translator from Kafr el Sheikh. He has held many educational and non-educational positions in Egypt and abroad. He worked as a medic at the Cairo University, the Al-Azhar University, the Ain Shams University in Egypt, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the College of Mexico in Spain, as well as the University of Sana'a in Yemen and Bahrain. Other non-educational positions held by Dr. Fadl include editing the Journal of the Egyptian Institute of Islamic Studies in Madrid, heading the Department of Arabic at Ain Shams University, other contributions to the Campus Council, and other academic contributions.
Shaker Abdel Hamid Suleiman was the Egyptian Minister of Culture from 2011 to 2017. He served as Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Culture, then Minister of Culture at the Ministry of Kamal al-Ganzuri in December 2011. He was also a Professor of Creative Psychology at The Egyptian Academy of Arts.
Nancy Mounir is an Egyptian independent musician, producer and violin player. After having performed with other musical artists in Egypt, she became known for the research and recording for her 2022 debut album Nozhet El Nofous, where she blended her own music with historical recordings of popular female singers of the 1920s music scene in Cairo.