Magdy El ShafeeMagdy El Shafee

Magdy El Shafee was born in Libya in 1961. He started a comic series for children in Alaa Eddin in 2003 and started publishing strips in El Dostoor in 2005. That year he also launched the first comics website in Arabic, www.magdycomics.com. He has published many underground and independent works in Egypt and in 2006 was recognized by UNESCO. His Metro, the first adult Arabic graphic novel in Egypt, will be published in 2008.

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Humphrey Davies has translated several recent works of fiction from Arabic, including The Yacoubian Building (American University in Cairo Press 2004 and Harper Perennial 2006), Tales of Dayrut by Muhammad Mustagab (American University in Cairo Press, due soon), Ahmed Alaidy's Being Abbas El Abd (AUC Press 2006), Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded by Yusuf al-Shirbini (Leuven, Editions Peeters, Orientalia Lovaniensia Annalecta 166), and Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun (Harvill-Secker 2005/Vintage 2006 and Archipelago Books 2005), for which he was awarded the inaugural Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, and Yalo (London, MacLehose Press). He lives in Cairo and may be contacted at hdavies@aucegypt.edu.

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