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Bakr's novel "El-Bashmoury" was our Readers Club Book selection for November 2003. For further reading on Bakr and
her work please check Readers Map for our: In a country famed for its rich modern literary tradition, Salwa Bakr has become one of Egypt's most respected novelists and short story writers. Born in Cairo in 1949, the daughter of a railway worker, Ms Bakr took a degree in business management in 1972 from Ain Shams University and in literary criticism in 1976 before embarking on a career in journalism. She began writing in
the mid-1970s, and her work has been met with much critical acclaim. Bakr lived for several years in Cyprus with her husband, where she worked as a film critic for a number of Arabic-language publications, before returning to Egypt in 1986, where she has since been concentrating on her creative writing. Other pieces of Bakr’s work, published in English, in addition to “Writing as a way out”, can be found in “My Grandmother’s Cactus” (1993) and “The Wiles of Men” (1992). the second of her novels, “The Golden Chariot” )al-’Araba al-dhahabiyya la Tas’ad ila-l-Sama) was published by Garnet Publishing in 1995. Her novel, “Wasf al-Bulbul” (Describing the Nightingale) was published in 1993. Salwa Bakr's short stories were awarded a major prize for fiction by the German national radio in 1993. Bakr’s life and work have been greatly affected by the 1967 Six-Day War defeat of Egypt by Israel- an event which she herself described as the first of many defeats. the repression in all the spheres of Egyptian life and in particular the political sphere is perhaps Bakr’s greatest concern. however, she maintains that both men and women can be liberated through the contributions of women’s writings. Salwa Bakr lives with her husband, Mourir Al Shaarani and two children in in Cairo. This information was collected from In the House of Silence, autobiographical Essays by Arab women Writers - Edited By Fadia Faqir, Garnet Publishing, United Kingdom. 1998A selection of her works are : “Zinat fi Janasat
ar-Ra’is” (Zinat at the President’s Funeral), 1985, short stories. “Wasf al-Bulbul” (Describing the Nightingale) 1993, short novel. " Araneb" 1994 (Rabbit / short novel and short stories) Iqâ'ât muta'âkisa (Contrary Rhythms) 1996, short stories "Layl wa Nahar " 1997, Novel " Albashmouri" 1998, Novel Al-Bashmouri II , 2000, Novel hilm el-seneen 2000 play - GEBO sawaki el-wakt 2003 novel -Hilal sho'or el-aslaf 2003 -stories Bashmouri 1 and 2 translated to french in 2003 - L'Esprit des Peninsules In English
Published 1997, this satirical novel is set within the walls of a
women's prison located outside Cairo during the Nasser era. It focuses
on a member of the Alexandrian aristocracy imprisoned for murder and,
according to Latifah al-Zayat, is written in a style "similar to
the style of folk-tales (al-haki al-sha'bi) which depends on digression,
description, accumulation of seemingly separate details, and turning
dramatic events into narrative." It is a novel of narrative
sophistication which was widely praised in its original Arabic
publication and has since been translated into English and other
European languages. |