Egyptian novelist and short story writer Bahaa Taher passed away in Egypt from illness on October 27, 2022.
Bahaa Taher was born in Giza Governorate on January 13, 1935, in Egypt. He had a bachelor’s degree in history, and literature faculty in 1956, then a postgraduate diploma in media from the University of Cairo in 1973.
He was one of the Egyptian artists who contributed to the avant-garde literary magazine Galerie 68. Upon being banned from writing in 1975, he left Egypt and travelled widely across Africa and Asia seeking work as a translator. During the 1980s and 1990s, he lived in Switzerland, where he worked as a translator for the United Nations. Afterward, he returned to Egypt, where he continued to reside.
Some of his novels were East of the Palms (1985), Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery (1991), Love in Exile (1995), The Point of Light (2001), and Sunset Oasis (2007) which won him the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008.
Read more about Bahaa Taher and his work as well as reactions to his passing from our friends at Arablit.org by clicking here.
