Egyptian Poet, Writer, Translator, and Journalist
This project is an effort by the family of Abdel Latif El Nashar to recover, restore, reintroduce and resurrect his place in Egyptian literature of the early 20th century through the 1970s. It is the intention of the project to make available his archived translations of internationally renowned literary work plus his volumes of poems to build the legacy of his writings.
This was undertaken through a process of archival restoration techniques, and current technology. Many of the documents were recovered from their original newspaper folios and restored and archived. Through research and translation, we are able to develop a chronology of his work and his life.
Most of what is known about Abdel Latif’s life is from his literature and from stories passed down from his daughter Rafia to her children. This effort was undertaken by his great grandchildren in their push to make sure his legacy is part of the global narrative.
An Arabic translation of the contents of this website is available here.
Abdel Latif and his wife Moufida ElShayal
Abdel Latif ElNashar Arabic: xعبد اللطيف النشار (1895 – 1973) was an Egyptian poet, writer, Arabic translator, and journalist whose life spanned the late 1800s until the mid-1970s. His full name was Mohamed Abdel Latif ElNashar. He was born in 1895 in Damiata, Egypt. He lived and worked in Alexandria, Egypt for most of his life until resettling in Cairo in 1955. He was known as the “Poet of Alexandria” and had a fierce love of the city. It inspired his writing and life’s work as he published his poetry and other writing in the newspapers of the time. He was a regular writer for the Wadi El-Nil newspaper in Alexandria from the 1920s through the 1950s during times of great political volatility in Egypt. He wrote for AlRisala, a weekly literary magazine, and for many other media publications including AlSafeer newspaper. His writing spanned sixty-five years until his death in 1973.
This is an example of Abdel Latif’s column from May, 1930, the Student Library, Maktab ElTalib, in the Wad El-Nil newspaper which was published on Sundays. The column generally included a chapter of a translation, here, The Golden River by John Ruskin. In addition, Abdel Latif published one or more original poems.
In 2001, a short article, “Abdel Latif ElNashar, Pharaoh’s Heaven and Moses Hell” appeared in as part of a series about “Great Literary Figures of Egypt” in the ElWafd newspaper by the journalist Lamie Al-Moutie.