Egyptian writers
Tawfiq al-Hakim: where to start
Tawfiq al-Hakim is the founding figure of modern Arabic drama and one of Egypt’s great novelists. Here is who he was, which of his books to read first, and where to go next.
Who is Tawfiq al-Hakim?
Al-Hakim was born in Alexandria in 1898 and died in Cairo in 1987. He studied law, spent several years in Paris in the 1920s, and then worked as a public prosecutor in the Egyptian countryside before devoting himself to writing.
He wrote dozens of plays, which gave Arabic theatre a modern literary form, as well as novels and essays.
Where to start
1937
Diary of a Country Prosecutor
A young prosecutor investigates a murder in a Nile Delta village. A satire of rural justice that works as a crime story.
1933
Return of the Spirit
A Cairo family on the eve of the 1919 revolution.
1933
The People of the Cave
His celebrated play about sleepers who wake after three centuries.
Why read Tawfiq al-Hakim today
Al-Hakim is witty, humane and surprisingly modern. Diary of a Country Prosecutor, drawn from his own years as a prosecutor, is a short and very readable way in.
Another Egyptian voice
Al-Hakim’s Diary of a Country Prosecutor is one of the first Egyptian novels built around an investigation. A.M. Khalifa writes in that tradition’s modern descendant, the international espionage thriller.
A.M. Khalifa grew up in a diplomatic corps family across more than fifteen countries and is the only Egyptian writing commercial espionage fiction in English. His debut, Terminal Rage, has sold more than 500,000 copies and received a starred review from Booklist.
More Egyptian writers
Naguib Mahfouz · Alaa Al Aswany · Ahdaf Soueif · Nawal El Saadawi · Omar El Akkad · Ahmed Mourad · Ahmed Khaled Towfik · Taha Hussein · Radwa Ashour · Yusuf Idris · Latifa al-Zayyat · Bahaa Taher · Youssef Ziedan · Sonallah Ibrahim · Ibrahim Abdel Meguid · Ezzedine Choukri Fishere · Khaled Al Khamissi · Mansoura Ez-Eldin · Waguih Ghali · Yasmine El Rashidi · Noor Naga · Omar Robert Hamilton · Nabil Farouk · A.M. Khalifa
Questions
Which Tawfiq al-Hakim book should I read first?
Diary of a Country Prosecutor. It is short, funny and built around a murder investigation.
Why is Tawfiq al-Hakim important?
He is regarded as the father of modern Arabic drama, and was one of Egypt’s leading novelists of the twentieth century.
Who are other classic Egyptian writers?
Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz and Yusuf Idris. See the full guide to Egyptian writers.