Background
He was born in Alexandria of Nubian parents who had left their impoverished native village.
He was born in Alexandria of Nubian parents who had left their impoverished native village.
From 1963 to 1967 he was a construction worker on the Aswan High Dam. Later, he served in the Egyptian army, where he saw action in both the War of Attrition and the October 1973 War. He didn"t begin writing until the age of forty.
Most of his work attempts to preserve various aspects of the gradually disappearing Nubian culture and language.
He is often regarded as one of a group of contemporary Nubian authors, the others being Idris Ali, Hasan Nur and Yehya Mukhtar. Nights of Musk: Stories from Old Nubia, translated by Anthony Calderbank, American University in Cairo Press (2005)
My Uncle Is On Labor, translated by Ahmed Fathy, First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Hadara Publishing (2008).