Bahaa Taher
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Bahaa Taher (Arabic: بهاء طاهر) (born Cairo 1935), sometimes transliterated as Bahaa Tahir, Baha Taher, or Baha Tahir, is an Egyptian novelist who writes in Arabic, and he is the winner of the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction, awarded in 2008.
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[edit] Life
He was born in Cairo in 1935.[1] He graduated in literature from the University of Cairo. He was banned from writing in 1975,[2] so he left Egypt and travelled widely in Africa and Asia seeking work as a translator.[2] During the 1980s and 1990s, he lived in Switzerland, where he worked as a translator for the United Nations.[1] Afterwards he returned to Egypt, where he still lives today.
[edit] Works
[edit] Novels
[edit] East of the Palms (1985)
(شرق النخيل) His first novel was first published in serialized form[2].
[edit] Qalat Duha (1985)
(قالت ضحى)
[edit] Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery (1991)
(خالتي صفية والدير) His third novel, set in Upper Egypt, concerns a blood feud as a result of which a young Muslim man, fleeing vengeance, finds sanctuary in a Coptic monastery.
[edit] Love in Exile (1995)
(الحب في المنفى) His fourth novel deals with the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.
[edit] The point of light (1999)
[edit] Sunset Oasis (2007)
(واحة الغروب) His sixth novel is set in 19th century Egypt at the beginning of the British occupation of the country. The protagonist of the book is a nationalist Egyptian police officer who suffers from an existential crisis.[3] [4]
[edit] Translations
- Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery has been translated into ten languages,[2]including the 1996 English translation by Barbara Romaine.
- Love in Exile was translated into English by Farouk Abdel Wahab, which is the pen name of Farouk Mustafa in 2002. [5]
- An English translation of Sunset Oasis is being planned for the near future.[6]
[edit] Awards
- 1998 State Award of Merit in Literature, which is Egypt’s highest literary award.[1]
- 2000 Italian Giuseppe Acerbi Prize for Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery.[1]
- 2008 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He is the first winner of this prize.[4]
[edit] Political views
In his youth he was involved in left wing causes [1], and was a supporter of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s development program for Egypt. [2]. He feels that Anwar El Sadat’s ending of this policy has been a disaster for Egypt[2]. He calls himself a pan-Arabist, but he says that he does not see much good in the Arab regimes of today[2]. He feels that Westerners want to see exoticism, gender discrimination, and problems between minorities in the works of Arab writers, but he refuses to comply with these stereotypes.[2]
