
Tawfiq Al-Hakim
Dates:
1898-1987
Gender:
Male
Biography
Playwright, novelist and essayist Tawfiq Al-Hakim, was born in 1898 in Alexandria, Egypt to an Egyptian landowning father and an aristocratic Turkish mother. He studied law in Cairo, graduating in 1925, and then continued his studies in Paris. Following his return from France, he worked as a deputy prosecutor in Alexandria, combining his legal work with writing. He also worked as a journalist Akhbar al-Yom newspaper, and as a manager of the Egyptian National Library. In 1956 the then Egyptian president Nasir, appointed Hakim to the Supreme Council for the Arts and he later represented Egypt at UNESCO Paris. Although he wrote novels, poems and essays, he is best remembered as a prolific playwright who played a key role in the development of Arabic drama. He died in 1987.
Publications
Title | Date | Publisher |
---|---|---|
Fate of a Cockroach and Four Plays of Freedom | 1973 | Heinemann Educational |
Plays, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq Al-Hakim: Theater of the Mind Vol 1 | 1981 | Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc |
Plays, Prefaces and Postscripts of Tawfiq Al-Hakim: Theater of Society Vol 2 | 1984 | Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc |
The Tree Climber: a Play in Two Acts | 1985 | Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc |
The Essential Tawfiq al-Hakim | 2008 | The American University in Cairo Press |
Critical sources
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