Name Rashid Al-Daif | Role Author | |
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Books Who's Afraid of Meryl Str, Learning English, Passage to dusk | ||
Rashid Al-Daif (Arabic: رشيد الضعيف) (or Rasheed Al-Daif, Rachid El-Daïf, Rachid El-Daif) is a Lebanese author, writing in Arabic. He has been translated into many languages, including French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Greek and Japanese.
Biography
Rashid Al-Daif was born into a Christian Maronite family in Ehden, near Zgharta, Lebanon in 1945. He studied Arabic literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, going on to do two doctorates in Paris. Since 1974 he had been teaching Arabic literature at the Lebanese University and AUB.
He has been referred to as "the Arab world's answer to Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco".
Margaret Drabble pays tribute to her long-standing friendship to Al-Daif and his wife in her contribution to the 2006 book Lebanon, Lebanon.