Rashid Al-Daif
Rashid Al-Daif is a Lebanese author, writing in Arabic. He has been translated into French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Japanese and Vietnamese.Biography
Rashid Al-Daif was born into a Christian Maronite family
in Ehden, near Zgharta, Lebanon in 1945. He studied Arabic literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, going on to do two doctorates in Paris. Since 1974 he had been teaching Arabic literature at the Lebanese University and AUB.
He has been referred to as "the Arab world's answer to Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco".
Margaret Drabble pays tribute to her long-standing friendship to Al-Daif and his wife in her contribution to the 2006 book Lebanon, Lebanon.
