Professor Fatma Moussa was for many years one of Egypt and the Arab world's foremost academics, educators and literary critics.
In her work she constantly built bridges and articulated relationships between the literature of 'the West' and that of 'the Orient'. She wrote accounts of each literature in the language of the 'other' literature. She translated two major works of English literature into Arabic and one major work of Arabic literature into English. She helped, encouraged and educated generations of young people to work in this area of shared culture. Many of these young people grew into positions of influence and power. She herself remained active and influential until her death in 2007 at the age of 80.
Fatma Moussa's academic career started with her work on the influence of the 'Oriental tale' on European literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. She is, for example, a widely quoted source on the history of The Thousand and One Nights and its entry into and influence on European literature.
She then went on to develop another line of academic enquiry: the influence of the European novel on the rise of the novel form in Egypt. As a literary critic writing for the Arab press she wrote widely on both European and Arabic literature. At one point Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz said she was the most perceptive critic to write about his work.
She was, in fact, the first serious translator of his work into English - long before he won the Nobel prize. Her translation of Miramar into English is arguably still the best among all the English translations of Mahfouz's work.
On the other hand, her masterly translation of King Lear into Arabic has been much admired over the years. In April 2002 it was staged by the Egyptian National Theatre to a great deal of acclaim.
In 1998 she was awarded "Ja’izat al-Dawlah al-Taqdiriyyah fi al-Funun wa al-Adab", the highest honour the State can bestow upon an academic.
In her last years she remained full-time active: teaching a graduate course at Cairo University, supervising PhD theses, running a major state-funded program for translation from English to Arabic of important works, sitting on various University and Ministry of Culture academic committees and working hard to establish a serious presence for PEN Egypt.
Affiliations:
1. The Egyptian Writers' Union
2. Egyptian Society of Comparative Literature, President
3. PEN, Egypt, Vice-President
4. International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE)
5. British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES)
6. American Association of Comparative Literature
7. International Association of Comparative Literature
8. International Federation of Modern Languages & Literature
9. The Beckford Society
Career:
1996- Chair, The Committee for Translation, The Higher Council for Culture, Cairo.
1996 - Editor, The Project for the Dictionary of the Theatre, General Egyptian Book Organisation, Cairo.
1994 - Emeritus Professor of English, Cairo University.
1987- 92 Director, Research Centre, King Saud University, Riyadh.
1986- 87 Chair, Dept. of English, Women's College, King Saud University, Riyadh.
1981- 83 Chair, Dept. of English, Women's College, King Saud University, Riyadh.
1981- 93 Professor of English, Faculty of Arts, King Saud University, Riyadh.
1975 Sabbatical leave, St. Antony's College, Oxford.
1972 -78 Chair, Dept. of English, Cairo University.
1972 Professor of English, Cairo University.
1965 Sabbatical leave, King's College, London University.
1958 Lecturer in English, Cairo University.
1954 -57 Full-time Ph.D. student, London University.
1952 Demonstrator, Dept. of English, Cairo University.
Degrees:
B.A. English Language and Literature, 1st Class Honours, Fouad I University, Cairo, 1948
M.A. English Language and Literature, Cairo University, Cairo, 1954
Ph.D. English Language and Literature, Westfield College, London University, London, 1957
Life:
Fatma Moussa brought up three children: Ahdaf Soueif (novelist) Layla Soueif (mathematician) and Ala Soueif (IT systems designer and Egyptologist). She has seven grandchildren.
FATMA MOUSSA-MAHMOUD
PUBLICATION LIST (English)
Theses
1. "Eastern Themes in English Romantic Literature", MA Thesis, Cairo University, 1956.
2. "The Oriental Tale in English Literature 1786-1874", PhD Thesis, London University, 1957.
Books
1. Sir William Jones and the Romantics, Cairo: Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1962.
2. (ed.) William Beckford of Fonthill (1760-1840), Bicentenary Essays, Supplement to Cairo Studies in English, 1960 (available on University microfilm).
3. (ed.) Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Letters From Turkey, Cairo: Anglo-Egyptian Bookshop, 1963.
4. The Arabic Novel in Egypt 1914-1970, Cairo: Egyptian Book Organisation, 1973.
Articles & Chapters in Books
1. "William Hamilton's Aegyptiaca", Cairo Studies in English, 1956.
2. "The Arabian Original of Landor's Gebir", Cairo Studies in English, 1958.
3. "Beckford, Vathek and the Oriental Tale", William Beckford, Bicentenary Essays, 1960.
4. "Orientals in Picaresque", Cairo Studies in English, 1964.
5. "The Republican Ideas of Sir William Jones", Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, 1972.
6. "Women in the Arabic Novel in Egypt", Bulletin of the Italian Cultural Centre, Cairo, 1976.
7. "A MS Translation of the Arabian Nights in the Beckford Papers", Journal of Arabic Literature, VII Leiden, 1976.
8. "Mme Vaucluse, Author and Femme Philosophe of the 18th Century", Cairo Studies in English, 1978.
9. "Literature as an Element of Unity in the Arab World", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin, 1978.
11. "Sir William Jones and Mme Vaucluse", Revue de Literature Comparée, January-March, 1980.
12. "George Eliot's Theory of Literature", Cairo Studies in English, 1982.
13. "Alienation in the Novels of Naguib Mahfouz", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin, 1982.
14. ''The Picaresque in the Modern Arabic Novel: a Borrowed Form?", Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Riyadh University, vol X, 1983.
15. "New Developments in the Arabic Short Story During the Seventies", British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin, 1983.
16. "Foreign Influences in the Plays of Nu’man Ashour", Proceedings of the First Conference on Comparative Drama, Publications of the American University: Cairo, 1984.
17. "The Traveller and the Arabian Nights in the Nineteenth Century", Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, King Saud University, 1985.
18. "English Travellers and the Arabian Nights", Chapter 3 in The Arabian Nights in English Literature, ed. Peter L Caracciolo, London: Macmillan Press, 1988.
19. "The Use of Classical versus Colloquial in Arabic Literature", Comparative Literature Association, New York, 1988.
20. "Naguib Mahfouz: a Profile", Third World Quarterly, London: January, 1989.
21. "The Girl in Green: the Heroine in Three Arabic Novels", BRISMES Conference, Paris, 1990.
22. "Hamlet in Egypt", Cairo Studies in English: Essays in Honour of Magdi Wahba, Cairo, 1990.
23. "A Muslim Pilgrim's Progress: Naguib Mahfouz's Ibn Fattuma", chapter in Golden Roads: Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Modern Islam, ed. E I Netton, Curzon Press, 1992.
24. "North Africa & the Middle East", chapter in The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature, London & New York, 1992.
25. "Back to Alf Leila, New Discourse in the Arabic Novel", Shaaban Memorial Conference on Arabic Literature, University of Exeter, 1994.
26. "Changing Techniques in Modern Arabic Poetry: Changing Values?" Proceedings of the Shaaban Memorial Conference on Arabic Literature, University of Exeter, 1996.
27. "Durrell's Alexandria, Tsirkas' Drifting City and the Alexandria of Egyptian Novelists", On Miracle Ground IX: The International Lawrence Durrell Conference, Alexandria, 1996.
28. "A Foothold in Egypt: the Blunts at Sheikh Obeyd". The Arabs & Britain: Changes and Exchanges, British Council Conference, Cairo, 1998.
29. "Where Angels Fear to Tread", Fifth International Symposium on Comparative Literature (Translation), Cairo University, 1998.
Translations
1. Mahfouz, Miramar, London: Heineman, 1978
2. Shakespeare, King Lear, Cairo, 1985
3. Soueif, The Map of Love , Cairo 2001
