Alifa Rifaat - Life

Life

Fatimah Abdullah Rifaat was born on June 5, 1930 in Cairo, Egypt. Her father was an architect and her mother was a housewife. Her family boasted that their roots are said to extend back to Umar ibn al-Khattab, a companion and advisor to the prophet Muhammad. She was raised in provincial Egypt and spent most of her life there. Subsequently rural Egypt became the setting for most of her stories. Her active interest in writing began at age nine she wrote a poem expressing the despair in her village. For this she was met with punishment by her family due to the poem’s topic matter. Fatimah attended Misr al-Jadidah Primary school and The Cultural Center for Women for her intermediate education. She also attended the British Institute in Cairo from 1946 to 1949 where she studied English. When Alifa Rifaat expressed interest in continuing her education by enrolling in the College of Fine Arts in Egypt her father instead arranged for her to marry her cousin, a police officer.

For the first few years of their marriage her husband allowed her to write and publish stories under her pseudonym despite the common idea of writing being a purely masculine field in Egyptian culture. She published her stories from 1955 until 1960 when she chose to stop after facing pressure from her husband to end her writing career. During this nearly 14-year period of literary silence Alifa Rifaat pursued the study of fields such as literature, and history. Despite her attempt at preoccupation through these means Alifa Rifaat remained frustrated at her inability to express herself and the societal issues she faced as a woman through literary means.

In 1973, after facing a serious illness, Alifa’s husband allowed her once more to write and publish her work. She continued on to publish a collection of short stories and two novels beginning with the short story "My World of the Unknown," for which she gained initial popularity.

Alifa Rifaat’s husband died in 1979. Although she traveled across provincial Egypt in accordance to her husband’s transfers for work she never left Egypt until after his death. She continued on to make the, the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca, in 1981 and travel to multiple European and Arab states including England, Turkey, Germany, Morocco, and Austria.

Throughout her life Fatimah Rifaat became a member of the Federation of Egyptian Writers, the Short-Story Club, and the Dar al-Udaba (Egypt). She also attended the First International Women's Book Fair (London, England) in 1984 where she spoke about the rights of women in Islam and the topic of polygamy. In 1984 Fatimah Rifaat received the Excellency Award from the Modern Literature Assembly. Fatimah Rifaat Died at the age of 65 in January 1996. She left behind three sons and a body of over 100 works that have been translated into multiple languages and have been produced for television. Some of her works have also been read on BBC.