Ashraf Dali’s Literary Career Celebrated in a Cultural Forum at his Home Town

On the second day of Eid Al-Fitr, April 11, 2024, Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Ashraf Dali) was hosted by the Al-Aberoon Cultural Salon, in home town Benha, where a forum discussed the creative literary career of his poetry books, novels, translation works, and travel literature. The Salon was presented by the writer and artist Muhammad Okasha.

The guest’s narrative work received the lion’s share of the interventions, as the novelist Muhammad 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 Muhammad 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, where the forum was held in his museum that showcases his sculptures, also spoke about Ashraf’s poetic experience, focusing his word from a poem about the home town of the author, Benha:

Benha

As a tit 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 the poet and playwright Tariq Omran, the novelist Fouad Morsi, the poet Waheed Amin, the poet Rabie Abdul-Razek, the 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. The TV director Fatima Al-Zahraa Hassan was keen to remind the attendees that Ashraf has a pioneering encyclopedia published by Alexandria bibliotheca on the Silk Road, in Arabic.

The salon concluded its session with a closing 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