Fatima Naoot
(Egypt, 1964)   
 
 
 
Fatima Naoot

Fatima Naoot, in full Fatima Sayyid Muhammad Hasan Naoot, was born in Cairo, 18 September 1964. In 1987 she graduated from Ein Shams University in Cairo as an architect and worked in the field for ten years before deciding to devote all her time to literature as a poet, writer and translator. She has published ten books  so far: five poetic collections, four translated anthologies from English into Arabic, and one book of criticism.

She is chief editor of the literary magazine Qaws Qazah (The Rainbow) and a writer for The 7th Day newspaper. She has translated short stories by Virginia Woolf, a volume of American and English poetry and a volume of short stories by John Ravenscroft. From 2001 onwards she published four volumes of Arabic poetry. The manuscript of her fifth volume was rewarded with the first prize in the Arabic literature section of the Literary festival in Hong Kong in 2006. The translation of this volume in both Chinese and English appeared meanwhile with the title A Bottle of Glue.

Naoot has attended many poetic festivals and committees in Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, and writes weekly columns in newspapers in Egypt and the Middle East. Her poetry has been translated into languages including English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese and Kurdish.

The magazine of Modern Arabic Literature, Banipal, volume 25, mentions Fatima Naoot in the article ‘New Writing in Egypt’, next to Iman Mersal and Emad Fouad, who were guests at Poetry International in Rotterdam, in 2003 and 2005 respectively.

© Kees Nijland

Selected Publications

Poetry
Finger’s Pat, 2001
One Centimeter Away From the Ground, 2002
A Longitudinal Section in the Memory, 2003
Upon a Woman’s Palm,  2004
A Head Split with an Ax
, 200
Pockets Weighed with Stones, 2005
The Temple of Roses, 2007
A Bottle of Glue, 2008

Translations
A Head Split with an Ax, Egypt, 2004 (American and Britain collection of poetry translated into Arabic)
Pockets Weighed with Stones, Egypt, 2005 (A book on Virginia Woolf  including  an Arabic translation of her novella An Un-written Novel)
Killing Rabbits (translated into Arabic), Egypt, 2005 (A collection of short stories by John Ravenscroft translated into Arabic)

Cultural criticsm

Writing with Chalk
(Essays about subjects including language, translation, liberty, arts and architecture)

Anthology
Hammurabi’s Sorrows, Egypt, 2003

Links
Fatima Naoot's homepage



[ Fatima Naoot took part in the Poetry International Festival Rotterdam 2007.
This text was written on that occasion.]

 




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