Hussein, Taha (1889-1973), was an influential Egyptian novelist, short-story writer, critic, literary historian, and educator. Hussein overcame poverty and blindness to become a leading cultural and public figure in Egypt. He served as minister of education in 1951 and 1952.
Hussein’s masterpiece, a three-volume autobiography, ranks among the classics of modern Arabic literature. The autobiography deals with his blindness and also provides valuable insights into Egyptian social and cultural life. The individual volumes are An Egyptian Childhood (1926), The Stream of Days (1932), and A Passage to France (1967). Hussein’s novel The Tree of Life (1944) is a sympathetic treatment of a traditional Egyptian family. The short stories collected in The Sufferers on Earth (1949) portray the opposition to social injustice in Egypt before the revolution that established the country as a republic in 1953. The Future of Culture in Egypt (1938) reflects Hussein’s appreciation of Western culture and urges Egyptians to adapt to modern life.
Taha Hussein was born in Maghagha, a village in southeastern Egypt, on Nov. 14, 1889. He lost his sight while a child. Despite his disability, he was the first student to earn a Ph.D. degree at the modern Egyptian University in 1915. After studying in France, he returned to Egypt in 1919 and eventually became the first Egyptian dean of the faculty of arts at his university. He was also the first Egyptian to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature. He died on Oct. 28, 1973, in Cairo.
