Radwa Ashour, born in EL-Manial, graduated from Cairo University  with a BA in 1967, and MA. in 1972, and from University of Massachusetts Amherst with a Ph.D. in African American Literature in 1975. She taught at AIn Shams University, Cairo. Ashour left behind her husband, the great Palestinian poet and memoirist Mourid Barghouti, and her son, the poet and political scientist Tamim.

Ashour and Barghouti, via Mansoura Ezz Eldin 

Credit: Mansoura Ez Eldin

 

Ashour wrote her multigenerational epic, Tantoureya in 2010. She was honored with a number of literary prizes, including the 2007 Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature and the 2011 Owais Prize.
tantoureya

She will be missed as a powerful voice who helped shaped Egyptian writers of the postwar generation. We at BM celebrate Radwa Ashour.

Read two of her newly translated stories here
Credit: arablit.org