Latifa al zayyat biography for kids

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This journey began on August 8, 1923. Born in Dumyat, Egypt to an established middle-class family, al-Zayyat benefited from her class’ interest in educating women. Between 1942 and 1946 she attended Cairo University , where she also received a Ph.D. in English literature in 1957. She then became a professor of English in the women’s college there and was the head of the English department between 1976-1983.

Al-Zayyat came of age as a woman, artist, and intellectual through living some of the most defining moments in her country’s modern history. She was shaped by events and she helped shape events, emerging in the process as a new model for Arab womanhood.

A Moment of Transformation

In 1934, an 11-year old girl stood on the balcony of her Al-Mansoura house looking at the street below. A battle was raging: on one side were fellow Egyptians protesting the British presence in their country and a corrupt palace complicit with imperial powers, on the other was the armed police. Open-eyed, the girl watched, and 60 years later, al-Zayyat described how she felt on that blood-stained day: “I trembled with feelings of powerlessness, of misery, of oppression, as the bullets of the police killed fourteen demonstrators that day. I screamed for my inability to act, I screamed for my inability to go down to the street to stop the bullets from coming out of the black guns. I shed the child in me and the young woman came of age — prematurely — for I encountered knowledge that went beyond the home to include all of the homeland. My future fate was decided at that moment...”

Not long after, as a secondary school-student, al-Zayyat took to the streets herself, joining in the anti-British demonstrations. Her political activities would only intensify with time. As an undergraduate at Cairo University, she became involved with leftist groups on campus and in 1946 was elected secretary of The Students’ and Workers’ National Committee, which led Egypt

Latifa Al-Zayyat (1923-1996) ( لطيفة الزيات), Egyptian writer and political activist born in Damietta. She received a B.A. in English literature from Cairo University in 1946 and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1957. She was a professor of English literature and criticism at the Girls' College at Ain Shams University from 1952 until her death.

She was the director of the Arts Academy and a member of the Supreme Council for Arts and Humanities. She published many works on politics, literary criticism, and creation in the novel, the short story, autobiography, and drama. She also published several translations and studies in English. She was a leader of the National Committee of Students and Workers in the 1940s. Her political activity led to her arrest on more than one occasion. She was the president of the Committee to Defend National Culture from 1979 until her death.

She was arrested in 1981 as part of a state campaign against intellectuals and writers. She was a member of the Council for World Peace and an honorary member of the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists. She was awarded the State Medal of Appreciation in humanities in 1996, only a few months before her death. She translated Maynard Solomon's Marxism and Art (New York: Vintage Books, 1973) as Hawi ai-fann: ru'ya Marksiya, published 1994.

She published influential works in the fields of critical theory and literary criticism, especially dealing with the image of women in Arabic novels. In addition, she is a distinguished novelist who wrote a seminal novel in 1960 called The Open Door الباب المفتوح which was also produced into a film starring Faten Hamama in 1963. About this novel, Latifa Al-Zayyat said: “in the novel, I aimed at crystallizing three levels of significance. The first one deals with the development of the female protagonist, and its related to the second which deals with developments in Egypt at that period.

As for the third

Egyptian activist and writer (1923–1996)

Latifa al-Zayyat (Arabic: لطيفة الزيات, romanized: Laṭīfah al-Zayyāt; 8 August 1923 – 10 September 1996) was an Egyptian activist and writer, most famous for her novel The Open Door, which won the inaugural Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.

Biography

Al Zayyat was born in Dumyat, Egypt, on 8 August 1923. She earned her bachelor's degree in English in 1946 from Cairo University. She joined the communist Iskra group while attending her last grade at the University. She was arrested and detained in Hadra prison in 1949, during the student demonstrations against the British occupation of the country. In the same incident, her first husband was also arrested and imprisoned. Following her release from prison she earned her PhD at Cairo University in 1957. During the same period she worked for the leftist magazine Al Tali'a as its cultural editor.

She met Inji Efflatoun, a founding member in 1945 of the Rabitat Fatayat al jami'at wa al ma'ahid (The League of university and Institutes' Young Women) during her time in the university. She was a student activist as well. Al Zayyat was a professor of English at the Girls College of Ain Shams University and the chair of the department of English at the same university. She also served as the director of the Egyptian Arts Academy. She was again imprisoned in 1981, while she was heading the Committee for the Defense of National Culture which had been established in opposition to the Camp David accords.

Two of Al Zayyat's novels are translated to English, The Owner of the House and The Open Door. The latter, published in 1960, was strikingly modern for its time, both for its use of colloquial Egyptian Arabic and for its depiction of the main character's political and sexual awakening.