Louis Awad ( ar, لويس عوض, el-Minya; 5 January 1915 – 9 September 1990) was an

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

intellectual and a writer. Born in the upper

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, in Sharuna village, in

Minya, Egypt MinyaAlso spelled '' el...'' or ''al...'' ''...Menia, ...Minia'' or ''...Menya'' ( ar, المنيا ; ) is the capital of the Minya Governorate in Upper Egypt. It is located approximately south of Cairo on the western bank of the Nile River ...

, Awad studied at the literature department of

Cairo University Cairo University ( ar, جامعة القاهرة, Jāmi‘a al-Qāhira), also known as the Egyptian University from 1908 to 1940, and King Fuad I University and Fu'ād al-Awwal University from 1940 to 1952, is Egypt's premier public university ...

before setting off to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

for further studies before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He returned to

in 1941, after which he lived in the Cairo district of

Dokki Dokki ( ar, الدقي , is one of nine districts that make up Giza city, which is part of Greater Cairo, in Egypt. Dokki is situated on the western bank of the Nile, directly across from Downtown Cairo. It is a vital residential and comme ...

for much of his adult life. He studied literature at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, and

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. In 1947 he was a professor of English at Cairo University and published a revolutionary collection of poems called ''Plotoland'' (also spelled ''Plutoland'') wherein he introduced free verse forms to Egyptian literature and presented a scathing attack on traditionalism in poetry. He was the first Egyptian chairman of the English Department (Faculty of Letters) at

and while there, he encouraged students to listen to classical music. When surrealism in art reached Egypt, he didn't denounce it but was quoted as saying, "“Whatever we think about the originality of this art form in Egypt, it was good at dealing a death blow to academism.” From 1945 to 1950 he joined with other writers who drew from

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

and other sources in a call for the total reform of Egyptian society. He attended talks by

Taha Hussein Taha Hussein (, ar, طه حسين; November 15, 1889 – October 28, 1973) was one of the most influential 20th-century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, and a figurehead for the Nahda, Egyptian Renaissance and the modernism, modernist movem ...

with

Denys Johnson-Davies Denys Johnson-Davies (Arabic: دنيس جونسون ديڤيز) (also known as Abdul Wadud) was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, ''inter alia,'' several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Su ...

.Johnson-Davies, D., & Mahfouz, N. (2006). Chapter 5. In Memories in Translation: A Life between the Lines of Arabic Literature (pp. 35-38). American University in Cairo Press. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt15m7k62.8 He was outspoken in his wish for "democratization and secularism in the Arab world" and he is celebrated in Egypt for having been a contemporary thinker. Awad's unwavering critical stance continued after the 1952 revolution. As a consequence, he suffered the humiliation of being forced to resign his position at Cairo University in 1954. In 1976, he wrote about the revolution in ''The Seven Masks of Nasserism: Discussing Heikal and Tawfik Al-Hakim''. Awad became the literary editor at the newspaper

al-Ahram ''Al-Ahram'' ( ar, الأهرام; ''The Pyramids''), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after '' al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majori ...

-the largest daily newspaper of the Middle East making him one of the leading opinion-makers in the Arab world.

References

External reference

The permanent revolution: From Cairo to Paris with the Egyptian surrealists by Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani 11/11/2016
{{DEFAULTSORT:Awad, Louis Egyptian people of Coptic descent Egyptian literary critics 1915 births 1990 deaths Cairo University alumni Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Princeton University alumni People from Minya Governorate Cairo University faculty

See also

References

External reference