Ashraf Dali’s literary career celebrated in hometown cultural forum

BENHA, Egypt: On April 11, coinciding with the second day of Eid Al-Fitr, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Ashraf Dali) was hosted by Al-Aberoon Cultural Salon, in his home town Benha, for a forum to discuss his creative literary career.

The Salon, moderated by writer and artist Mohammed Okasha, highlighted Asraf’s poetry books, novels, translation works, and travel literature.

The guest’s narrative work received the lion’s share of the interventions, as the novelist Mohammed Ibrahim Taha, the novelist Ahmed Amer, and the critic Muhammad Ali Azab spoke about three works: The Translator, A Backyard Garden and (31).

The two novelists Mohammed Abu Al-Dahab and Hossam Al-Muqaddam addressed the features of the guest’s travel literature, especially in his book “Moroccan Tales Caravan”.  Al-Muqaddam also brought to audience the recent experience of translating four Hakka poets by Ashraf Dali.

Artist Dr. Hisham Al-Fakharani, whose museum that showcases his sculptures, hosted the cultural event, also spoke about Ashraf’s poetic experience, focusing on his words from a poem about the home town of the author, Benha:

Benha 

As a mammary gland on the River Nile’s breast

Benha sleeps, and pours

Its honey in my dreams.

I wonder, when I come home

If I could remember all its roads?

Or if Benha remembers my face

With the new tired roads

Engraved on it?

The multi-faceted project was addressed by poet and playwright Tariq Omran, novelist Fouad Morsi, the poet Waheed Amin, poet Rabie Abdul-Razek, novelist Hani Al-Qat, and Dr. Ahmed Al-Habashi, who discussed Ashraf Aboul-Yazid’s translation of the medical book (The Grace of Stem Cells) written by Korean researcher Dr.  Jeong-Chan Ra.

TV director Fatima Al-Zahraa Hassan was keen to remind the attendees that Ashraf has a pioneering encyclopedia published in Arabic by Alexandria Bibliotheca on the Silk Road.

The salon concluded its session with a speech from the honorable guest.

The salon was attended by writers Abdul Hakim Al-Deeb, Ibrahim Hassanein, Ibrahim Rifai, Islam Shams Al-Din, Rajab Al-Aghar, Yusri Abdul Salam Sabri and others.

(Photos: Fatima Al-Zahra Hassan)