Edwar al-Kharrat (Arabic: إدوار الخراط; 16 March 1926 – 1 December 2015)
His novel The Gypsy and Youssef the Storekeeper was our book of the month for Ocotober 2006/
Find more information on the book's page.
Edwar Al-Kharrat or Edward el Kharrat was a novelist, short story writer and poet. He has also worked as a literary and art critic, a translator, and a writer for radio. On account of the broad scope of his activities, Al-Kharrat is undoubtedly to be numbered among the most influential Egyptian authors, and is arguably one of the most influential literary figures in the entire Arab world.
A Copt, Edwar Al-Kharrat was born on 16 March 1926 in Alexandria to a father from Akhmeem in Upper Egypt and a mother from al-Turranah west of the Nile Delta. He gained a degree in law from the University of Alexandria in 1946.
During his studies, and following his father’s death, he worked at the British Navy Storehouse in al-Qabari in Alexandria, following which he worked as a translator and editor at the al-Baseera newspaper in Alexandria. He then worked for the al-Ahli Bank in Alexandria until 1948. He took part in the nationalist revolutionary movement and in a Trotskyite group in Alexandria in 1946. As a result, he was arrested on 15 May 1948 and spent two years at the Abu Qir and al-Tour detention centres.
He then worked at the Egyptian Private Insurance Company in Alexandria until 1955, after which he moved to Cairo and took up a job as a translator at the Romanian embassy until 1959. He married in 1958, and has two sons and four grandchildren.
In 1959, he took up a job with the Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation (AAPSO), then worked for the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association (until 1983). He edited several political and cultural publications for both organisations, the most prominent of them having been Afro-Asian Poetry and Afro-Asian Essays, which appeared in Arabic, English and French.He also became deputy secretary-general of both organisations.
He edited and helped publish Lotus, the magazine of African and Arabic literature, which was again published in three - Arabic, English and French - languages, and the pioneering Gallery 68 magazine. He has paid working visits to most countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. He edited the 14th issue of the al-Karmel magazine, which was devoted to modernist Egyptian literature, in 1984.
Edwar Al-Kharrat has translated from English and French into Arabic seventeen published books on fiction, philosophy, politics and sociology. He has also translated ten long plays and twelve short plays for Egypt’s Second Broadcasting Service, as well as scripting many longer programmes for the service. He has also participated in several of the service’s cultural programmes and seminars. A large number of his studies, articles, translations and interviews have been published in Egyptian, Arab and European magazines.
He was invited to St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, as a visiting scholar in spring, 1979. He gave several lectures in English on modern Egyptian literature at London University’s School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) and at many other academic and non-academic institutions”). He gave a series of lectures at the Arab World Institute in Paris in October and November 1996 on “Modernist Tendencies in the Art of Arab Fiction”, which was published as Voices of Modernity in Fiction by Dar al-Adaab in Beirut in 1999.
In 1986, he represented his home country of Egypt at the 65th meeting of the International PEN in Hamburg. He chaired the jury of the Mediterranean Film Festival in Bastia, Corsica, in 1988, and the jury of the International Film Festival of Carthage in 2002.
His novel City of Saffron has been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Greek, and was chosen by the British writer Doris Lessing as Book of the Year in 1990. His novel Stones of Bobello has been translated into French, Italian, Catalan, German, Polish and English. His novel Girls of Alexandria has been translated into Italian, English and French. A French translation of his short story collection Dance of Yearning was published in 1997.
Edward Al-Kharrat has been presented with numerous awards. He won the State Prize for Fiction in 1973, the Franco-Arab Friendship Prize in France in 1991, the Al-Owais Award For Fiction in 1994/1995, the Cavafis Award Greek Studies in 1998, and the Naguib Mahfouz Award for Fiction of the American University of Cairo in 1999. In 2000, he was awarded Egypt’s State Merit Award for Literature.
