The well-known literary figure slipped into a coma one month ago and has not shown signs of improvement
The governorate of Cairo has announced that it will name a street in the El-Gamaliyya neighbourhood after the great Egyptian writer and novelist Gamal El-Ghitani, who was born there.
Gamal El-Ghitani, 70, is in a military hospital in a critical condition, and has shown no signs of improvement since slipping into a coma a month ago.
The street, will have its name changed from "Dabbabya" to "Gamal El-Ghitani". It connects two of the most important and famous streets in Islamic Cairo; El-Moez street and Gamaliyya Street.
El-Ghitani was born in Upper Egypt on 9 May 1945 to a poor family, before they moved to Islamic Cairo's El-Gamaliyya neighbourhood.
El-Gamaliyya, with its rich heritage and architecture, was where El-Ghitani’s consciousness as an author was shaped and is the setting of many of his novels.
His literature has been translated into many languages including English, German and French.
"Papers of a Youth Who Lived a Thousand Years Ago" is the work that begun his literary career in 1969.
He also worked as a front-line war reporter during the Arab-Israeli conflict until the war in 1973.
El-Ghitani has won many prizes and his works have been recognised locally and internationally. Most recently he won the Nile Award for Literature in 2015, the highest literary honour granted by the Egyptian state. He has also won the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1987, as well as several other awards.
In 1993 El-Ghitani founded Akhbar Al-Adab (Literature News), one of Egypt's most prestigious literary newspapers. He remained the editor-in-chief until 2011.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/141975.aspx
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