Radwa Ashour (Arabic: رضوى عاشور) (26 May 1946 – 30 November 2014) was an Egyptian novelist.[1]

Radwa Ashour
Born(1946-05-26)May 26, 1946
El-Manial, Egypt
Died30 November 2014(2014-11-30) (aged 68)
Cairo, Egypt
OccupationNovelist
LanguageArabic, English
NationalityEgyptian
CitizenshipEgyptian
EducationCairo University
University of Massachusetts
Years active1967–2014
SpouseMourid Barghouti
ChildrenTamim al-Barghouti
Website
https://www.goodreads.com/radwaashour

Life

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Ashour was born in El-Manial[2] to Mustafa Ashour, a lawyer and literature enthusiast, and Mai Azzam, a poet and an artist. She graduated from Cairo University with a BA degree in 1967. In 1972, she received her MA in Comparative Literature from the same university. In 1975, Ashour graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a PhD in African American Literature.[3] Her dissertation was entitled The search for a Black poetics: a study of Afro-American critical writings.[4] While preparing for her PhD, Ashour was remarked as the first doctoral candidate in English who studied the literature of the African-American.[5] She taught at Ain Shams University, Cairo. Between 1969 and 1980, Ashour's mainly focused on studying, raising her son and playing an active role as an activist. She married Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti in 1970. She gave birth to her son, poet Tamim al-Barghouti, in 1977. In that same year, Ashour's husband, Mourid Barghouti was deported from Egypt to Hungary. As she and her son stayed in Cairo, they used to make frequent visits to Mourid.[6]

Ashour died on 30 November 2014 after months of long-term health problems.[7]

From 1990 to 1993, she served as Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature in the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University, as well as teaching at the university and supervising research and dissertations related to her MA. degrees.[8][9]

At the beginning of the third millennium, Ashour returned to the field of literary criticism, where she published a collection of works on the field of applied criticism, contributed to the Encyclopedia of the Arabic Writer (2004), and supervised the translation of the ninth part of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Literary Criticism (2005).[10]

Between 1999 and 2012 she published four novels and one collection of short stories, the most important of which are the novel Tanturia (2011) and Lady Young's collection of anecdotal reports.[11][12]

In 2007 she was awarded the Constantine Kwavis International Literary Prize in Greece, and in 2008 she published an English translation of Mourid Barghouti's poetry anthology entitled Midnight and Other Poems.[13][14]

Mourid Barghouti, Radwa Ashour's husband, wrote many letters and poems expressing his sincere feelings for her and she, in turn, also exchanged love letters with him.[15]

Her academic and social work

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Active member of the following organizations:[16]

  • Committee for the Protection of National Culture.
  • National Committee for Resistance to Zionism in Egyptian Universities.
  • On March 9, a group for university independence.

In addition to her membership on a group of cultural and academic related arbitration committees:

  • State Incentive Awards Committee
  • Standing Committee of the High Council of Culture
  • History Committee of the Supreme Council of Culture

Tribute

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On 26 May 2018, Google Doodle commemorated Radwa Ashour's 72nd birthday.[17]

Works

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  • The Journey: Memoirs of an Egyptian Student in America, 1983[18]
  • Warm Stone, 1985[19]
  • Khadija and Sawsan, 1989
  • I Saw the Date Palms, short stories, 1989
  • Siraj. Translated by Barbara Romaine. University of Texas Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0-292-71752-7.[20]
  • Granada: a novel. Translated by William Granara. Syracuse University Press. 2003. ISBN 978-0-8156-0765-6.
  • Apparitions. 1998. Specters, Translated Barbara Romaine, Interlink Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-56656-832-6[21]
  • Al-Tantouria, 2010[22]
  • Blue Lorries. Translated by Barbara Romaine. Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing. 2014. ISBN 978-99921-94-48-5.
  • Athqal Min Radwa, 2013 ISBN 9789770932636
  • li Kull Al Mqhoorin Ajnih'a, 2019
  • Faraj.[23]

As editor

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  • Encyclopaedia of Arab Women Writers, 1873–1999. American University in Cairo Press. 2008. ISBN 978-977-416-146-9.

Awards

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Translations of Ashour's Work

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  • Granada Trilogy was translated into Spanish and English[24]
  • Siraj was translated into English.
  • Atyaaf was translated into Italian.
  • She has a number of short stories that were published in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
  • Al-Tantouria has been published in English

Translated in Tamil by Dr. P. M. M. Irfan, August 2021

References

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  1. ^ "The English Pen Online World Atlas – Radwa Ashour". Penatlas.org. 31 May 2008. Archived from the original on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  2. ^ Gikandi, Simon (2003). Encyclopedia of African Literature. London: Taylor & Francis. pp. 44–46. ISBN 978-1-134-58223-5. OCLC 1062304793.
  3. ^ "Radwa Ashour (1946-2014): A Literary, Cultural and Political Activist Icon, Echoing in Egypt's Valley". Al Jadid. Vol. 19, no. 68. 2015.
  4. ^ Ashour, Radwa M. 1979. The Search for a Black Poetics: a study of Afro-American critical writings. Thesis—University of Massachusetts.
  5. ^ "Radwa Ashour | W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies | UMass Amherst". www.umass.edu. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  6. ^ "Beloved Egyptian Novelist Radwa Ashour, 1946–2014". ArabLit. 1 December 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  7. ^ "Egyptian writer Radwa Ashour dies at 68". ahram.org.eg. 1 December 2014. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  8. ^ "Radwa Ashour obituary". www.theguardian.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  9. ^ "Radwa Ashour: A writer of stance". www.egypttoday.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  10. ^ "رضوى عاشور: الروايات كالعفاريت تظهر في أي وقت". www.albayan.ae. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  11. ^ "Radwa Ashour". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  12. ^ "Radwa Ashour Day: 9 to Read and 1 to Translate". arablit.org. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  13. ^ "In Honor of Radwa Ashour". arablit.org. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  14. ^ "Radwa Ashour". www.alowais.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  15. ^ "أروع اقتباسات رضوى عاشور أجمل ما كتبت رضوى عاشور". wordsfn.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  16. ^ "Radwa Ashour (1946-2014): A Literary, Cultural and Political Activist Icon, Echoing in Egypt's Valley". aljadid.com. Retrieved 17 February 2024.
  17. ^ "Radwa Ashour's 72nd Birthday".
  18. ^ "seo.book الرحلة pdf by Radwa Ashour". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  19. ^ "seo.book حَجَر دافئ pdf by Radwa Ashour". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  20. ^ "seo.book سراج pdf by Radwa Ashour". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  21. ^ "Arab America – News – Egyptian Novelist Radwa Ashour's "Specters" Translated by Barbara Romaine". Arabdetroit.com. Archived from the original on 2 October 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  22. ^ "seo.book الطنطورية pdf by Radwa Ashour". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  23. ^ "seo.book فرج pdf by Radwa Ashour". www.ysk-books.com. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
  24. ^ a b "Radwa Ashour – Arab Women Writers". arabwomenwriters.com. 3 May 2014. Archived from the original on 4 January 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  25. ^ "Radwa Ashour". The Kennedy Center. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
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