Louis Awad
Louis Awad ( Arabic لويس عوض, DMG Luwīs ʿAwaḍ ), also written Luis Awadh , (born January 5, 1915 in Sharuna , al-Minya Governorate , Upper Egypt , Egypt ; † September 9, 1990 in Cairo ) was an Egyptian intellectual and writer.
Life
Awad was born into a Coptic family. After leaving school, he studied literature at Cairo University and then went to Oxford University and Princeton University in the USA for further studies. In 1941 he returned to Egypt and lived almost exclusively in the Dokki district of Giza on the west side of the Nile in Cairo until the end of his life .
Awad taught at the Faculty of Philosophy at Cairo University and founded a modern school of literary criticism based on scientific principles. In the years 1945 to 1950 he turned to Marxism together with other Egyptian writers . The circle, to which his cousin Fawzi Habashi belonged, advocated a comprehensive reform of Egyptian society. In the following years he spent some time in the same police cell with his cousin, who lived with him during his student days in Cairo. His commitment to social reform continued even after the revolution of 1952, so that in 1954 he had to give up his post as a professor at the university.
Inn Awad's novel Anqa expressed his views on reform in Egypt. His volume of poems Plutoland showed verse in free form for the first time and was an attack on traditionalism in the country.
In 1960 Awad became head of the literary pages of the largest Egyptian daily newspaper, Al-Ahram . In this position he criticized the form of education in Egyptian schools and universities. His statements in Al-Ahram made him one of the most important opinion makers in the Arab world in the following years.
Awad was an advisor to the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt in the 1970s and 1980s .
literature
- Fawzi Habashi: Prisoner in all Epochs , Dar Merit, Cairo 2004.
- Fawzi Habashi: Prisoner of all Generations. My Life in the Homeland Egypt , Karl Schwan Verlag, Berlin 2011 ISBN 978-3-87997-350-7
- Irmgard M. Sterner: Louis Awad, an Egyptian critic and thinker of the 20th century: Streiter for a secular state , Hamburg research on Islamic and Turkish studies and texts, Volume 1; LIT, Münster / Hamburg, 1994 ISBN 3-89473-770-0
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fawzi Habashi: see literature
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Awad, Louis |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Awadh, Luis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Egyptian intellectual and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 5, 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Sharuna , Al-Minya Governorate , Upper Egypt , Egypt |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 9, 1990 |
| Place of death | Cairo , Egypt |