Louis Awad

Louis Awad (Arabic لويس عوض ), also written Luis Awadh, ( born January 5, 1915 in Scharuna, Governorate Al- Minya, Upper Egypt, Egypt; † September 9, 1990, Cairo ) was an Egyptian intellectual and writer.

Life

Awad was born to a Coptic family. After leaving school, he studied literature at Cairo University and then went to Oxford University and Princeton University in the U.S. to further studies. In 1941 he returned to Egypt and then lived up to its end of life almost exclusively in the Dokki district in the district of Giza on the west bank of the Nile in Cairo.

Awad taught at Cairo University at the Faculty of Philosophy and established a modern school of literary criticism that is based on scientific principles. In the years 1945 to 1950 he turned, along with other Egyptian writers to Marxism. The circle, which his cousin Fawzi Habashi belonged, campaigned for a comprehensive reform of Egyptian society. With his cousin, who lived with him during his studies in Cairo, he spent the following years some time in the same cell of the police. His commitment to the social reforms continued even after the revolution of 1952, so he had to give up his post in 1954 as a professor at the university.

Inn Awad's novel Anqa his views on reform in Egypt were expressed. His band for the first time with poems Pluto country showed verses in free form and was an attack on traditionalism in the country.

Awad in 1960 became head of the Literature pages of the largest Egyptian daily Al -Ahram. In this position, he criticized the form of training of Egyptian schools and universities. His opinions in Al- Ahram made ​​him in the years to become one of the most important opinion makers in the Arab world.

In the 1970s and 1980s was Awad advisor to the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt.