Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa

Who was Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa?

Farouk Abdel Wahab Mustafa was an Egyptian academic and translator based in the USA. He was born in Tanta and studied at the University of Cairo. He received a BA degree in 1962 and an MA in English literature in 1969. He pursued doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota, obtaining a PhD in comparative literature in 1977. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1975 until his death. He is the first occupant of the university's Ibn Rushd Professorial Lectureship in Modern Arabic Language, and is also the Associate Director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Mustafa was also a noted translator of contemporary Arabic literature. Among his translations are the following:

⁕A Certain Woman by Hala el Badry

⁕Birds of Amber by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

⁕Chicago by Alaa el Aswany

⁕Love in Exile by Bahaa Tahir

⁕No One Sleeps in Alexandria by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

⁕The Lodging House by Khairy Shalaby

⁕The Other Place by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid

⁕The Zafarani Files by Gamal al-Ghitani

⁕Zayni Barakat by Gamal al-Ghitani

⁕Al-A'mal al-Kamila of Mikhail Roman

Mustafa won the 2007 Banipal Prize for his translation of Khairy Shalaby's The Lodging House. He has also translated works by Shakespeare and Pirandello into Arabic. He is a member of the Middle East Studies Association and the Arab Cultural Council of America.