Yahya Haqqi

Who was Yahya Haqqi?

Yahya Haqqi was an Egyptian writer and novelist. Born to a middle-class family in Cairo, he was trained as a lawyer at the Cairo School of Law, graduating in 1925. Like many other Egyptian writers, such as Naguib Mahfouz and Yusuf Idris, he spent most of his life as a civil servant, supplementing his literary income; he eventually rose to become adviser to the National Library of Egypt.

In his literary career, he published four collections of short stories, one novel, and many articles and other short stories besides. He was editor of the literary magazine Al-Majalla from 1961 to 1971, when that publication was banned in Egypt. He has experimented with the various literary norms: the short story, the novel, literary criticism, essays, meditations, and literary translation.