Miral's Third
novel "The Gazelles' Taps" was our Readers Club Book selection
for June 2003.
For further reading on Miral and
her work please check Readers Map for our:
June 2003 selection
Miral el-Tahawi was born in
Geziret Saoud in Sharkeya, Egypt.
In 1991 she earned her BA in
Literature (Arabic Language Studies) at Zagazig University and is
currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Literature and
Criticism, Cairo University.
She is working on her doctorate
about The Desert novel in Arabic literature.
She participated with her
various academic studies in numerous international conferences and
published articles in magazines and cultural journals.
Her critical book gadaliat
al-tamarud wal-ighterab fi al-nass al-qasassi, which is going to be
published soon, was her thesis for the MA in 1995 at Zagazig University,
Faculty of Literature.
Her works were discussed by
numerous critics and artists in Egypt and other Arab countries as well
as in several different languages, especially English, French and
Spanish: Mahmood Amin al-Alem, Dr. Ezz El Din Ismail, Abdel Moneim
Telema, Sayed al-Bahrawi and others.
In 2000 she won the country's
encouragement prize for her novel al-bazengana al-zarkaa (The Blue
Eggplant). Thus, she is the first female Egyptian novelist to win this
prize. Her two novels are discussed in various universities and
institutes across Egypt and Arab countries as well as in many Arabic
language departments in many European and American universities. Her
literary style is subject of several research papers (master thesis and
doctorate degrees).
El-Tahawi has great interest in
investigating the inter-relationship between the fields of anthropology
, ethnograpby and the Desert Novel.
Among her various academic
researches are:
- The Dialectic of Rebellion end
Alienation in the short stories after Egypt Israel War 1967.
- A study in the interrelation
between the autobiographical data and the novel aspect in Latifa
El-Zayyat’s novels.
- an extended survey of the
forms of Bedouin's Folklore, published in serial (Folklore Art Magazine)
- A study in mythical forms in
the desert novel published by Alef magazine - AUC
- M.A in woman writings with
special reference to Ghada El Seman