Ahdaf Soueif

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Ahdaf Soueif
أهداف سويف
Soueif at the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
Born (1950-03-23) 23 March 1950 (age 74)
Cairo, Egypt
Notable workThe Map of Love (1999)
SpouseIan Hamilton
Children2
RelativesLaila Soueif (sister)
Alaa Abd El-Fattah (nephew)
Mona Seif (niece)
Sanaa Seif (niece)
Websitewww.ahdafsoueif.com

Ahdaf Soueif (Arabic: أهداف سويف; born 23 March 1950) is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator.

Early life[edit]

Soueif was born in Cairo, where she lives, and was educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a PhD in linguistics at the University of Lancaster, completing the degree in 1979.[1][2] Her sister is the human and women's rights activist and mathematician Laila Soueif.[3]

Career[edit]

Her debut novel, In the Eye of the Sun (1993), set in Egypt and England, recounts the maturing of Asya, a beautiful Egyptian woman who, by her own admission, "feels more comfortable with art than with life." Soueif's second novel, The Map of Love (1999), was shortlisted for the Booker Prize,[4] has been translated into 21 languages and sold more than a million copies.[5] She has also published two works of short stories, Aisha (1983) and Sandpiper (1996) – a selection from which was combined in the collection I Think Of You in 2007, and Stories Of Ourselves in 2010.

Soueif writes primarily in English,[1] but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English.[6] She translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah[7] (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English.

Along with her readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in The Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004) and she wrote the introduction to the NYRB's reprint of Jean Genet's Prisoner of Love.[citation needed]

In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature,[8] of which she is the Founding Chair.[9]

Soueif is also a cultural and political commentator for The Guardian newspaper, and she has reported on the Egyptian revolution.[10] In January 2012, she published Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – a personal account of the first year of the Egyptian revolution. Her sister Laila Soueif, and Laila's children, Alaa Abd El-Fatah and Mona Seif, are also activists.[11]

She was married to Ian Hamilton,[12] with whom she had two sons: Omar Robert Hamilton and Ismail Richard Hamilton.[13]

She was appointed a trustee of the British Museum in 2012 and re-appointed for a further four years in 2016.[14] However she resigned in 2019 complaining about BP's sponsorship, the reluctance to re-hire workers transferred to Carillion and lack of engagement with repatriating artworks.[15]

In June 2013, Soueif and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for Chelsea Manning.[16][17]

Political views[edit]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Soueif signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."[18][19]

In 2020, Soueif was arrested for demanding the release of political prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt.[20]

Bibliography[edit]

Library resources about
Ahdaf Soueif
By Ahdaf Soueif
  • Aisha, London: Bloomsbury, 1983.
  • In the Eye of the Sun, NY: Random House, 1992.[21]
  • Sandpiper, London: Bloomsbury, 1996.
  • The Map of Love, London: Bloomsbury, 1999.[22]
  • trans. of I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. NY: Anchor Books, 2003.
  • Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground, NY: Anchor Books, 2004.
  • I Think of You, London: Bloomsbury: 2007.[23]
  • Cairo: My City, Our Revolution, Bloomsbury, 2012[24]
  • This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature.[25]

Literary awards[edit]

In a review of Egyptian novelists, Harper's Magazine included Soueif in a shortlist of "the country's most talented writers."[26] She has also been the recipient of several literary awards:

Literary criticism[edit]

Marta Cariello: "Bodies Across: Ahdaf Soueif, Fadia Faqir, Diana Abu Jaber" in Al Maleh, Layla (ed.), Arab Voices in Diaspora. Critical Perspectives on Anglophone Arab Literature. Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2009, Hb: ISBN 978-90-420-2718-3

Chakravorty, Mrinalini. "To Undo What the North Has Done: Fragments of a Nation and Arab Collectivism in the Fiction of Ahdaf Soueif." In Arab Women's Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing, edited by Nawar Al-Hassan Golley, 129–154. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780815631477

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Ahdaf Soueif" in Contemporary Authors Online. Gale. 11 November 2003.
  2. ^ "Ahdaf Soueif | International Prize for Arabic Fiction". www.arabicfiction.org. Retrieved 2022-03-20.
  3. ^ Anderson, Scott (4 May 2017). Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart. Pan Macmillan. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-5098-5272-7. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  4. ^ Nash, Geoffrey (2002). "Ahdaf Soueif" in Molino, Michael R. (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 267: Twenty-First-Century British and Irish Novelists. Gale: pp. 314–321.
  5. ^ Mahjoub, Jamal (2011), "Selmeyyah" in Guernica Magazine, 15 March 2011.
  6. ^ Attalah, Lina in Mada Masr[1]
  7. ^ "I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti, Edward W. Said, and Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  8. ^ C.S. (26 April 2011). "The Palestine Festival of Literature – An explosive evening in the territories". The Economist. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  9. ^ "The Palestine Festival of Literature Team". The Palestine Festival of Literature. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  10. ^ "Afdah Soueif Profile". The Guardian. London. 12 August 2008. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  11. ^ Soueif, Ahdaf (13 November 2011). "In Egypt, the stakes have risen". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  12. ^ Morrison, Blake (29 December 2001). "Ian Hamilton Obituary". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
  13. ^ "Dr Ahdaf Soueif (DLitt) Honorary Graduates". University of Exeter. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
  14. ^ "Prime Minister Reappoints Three Trustees to the Board of the British Museum". GOV.UK.
  15. ^ Soueif, Ahdaf (July 15, 2019). "Ahdaf Soueif | On Resigning from the British Museum's Board of Trustees · LRB 15 July 2019". LRB Blog.
  16. ^ Gavin, Patrick (19 June 2013). "Celeb video 'I am Bradley Manning'". POLITICO.com. Retrieved 8 September 2013.
  17. ^ I am Bradley Manning (full HD). I am Bradley Manning. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved 8 September 2013 – via YouTube.
  18. ^ "Vote for hope and a decent future". The Guardian. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  19. ^ Proctor, Kate (3 December 2019). "Coogan and Klein lead cultural figures backing Corbyn and Labour". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
  20. ^ "Coronavirus: Egypt detains novelist Ahdaf Soueif for demanding prisoners' release". Middle East Eye.
  21. ^ "In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  22. ^ "The Map of Love: A Novel by Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  23. ^ "I Think of You: Stories by Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  24. ^ "Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed by Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  25. ^ "This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.
  26. ^ Creswell, Robyn (February 2011). "Undelivered: Egyptian novelists at home and abroad". Harper's. Vol. 322, no. 1, 929. Harper's Foundation. pp. 71–79. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  27. ^ "Soueif Wins Mahmoud Darwish Award for Creativity" Archived 2013-08-26 at the Wayback Machine, Mahmoud Darwish Foundation, 13 March 2010.
  28. ^ Oliver, Christine, "The 2011 Guardian and Observer books power 100 – interactive", The Guardian, 23 September 2011.
  29. ^ "Reflections: (English edition) by Ahdaf Soueif". aalbc.com: African American Literature Book Club. Retrieved 2024-04-25.

External links[edit]

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