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Through Forts and Frontiers: A conversation with Safaa Fathy

January 24, 20187:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Arabic, with simultaneous translation

During this event at Casa Árabe, Arabist Francisco Manuel Rodríguez Sierra will be holding a conversation with Safaa Fathy about her art work, marked by her reality as an expatriate living in Europe, and how it can be framed with the current Arab cultural scene.

Appearing with Fathy, a writer, artist and philosopher, and Rodríguez Sierra, a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, will be Pedro Martínez-Avial, the General Director of Casa Árabe, who will be introducing and moderating the event. We will be taking advantage of the presence of this well-known intellectual to speak about the transformations which have taken place in the Arab world in recent years.

Safaa Fathy (Menia, 1958) is one of the best-known Egyptian writers and creators in the cultural scene on the Nile. With a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, she has resided in Paris since 1981, where she earned a PhD at the Sorbonne (1993) with a study on Bertolt Brecht. Since then, Safaa  Fathy has developed a multifaceted artistic production, in Arabic, French and English, which ranges from writing poetry and plays to directing theater and cinema works, as well as being a literary critic and producing philosophical writings. A notable feature of her work is her close relationship with French philosopher Jacques Derrida, with whom she wrote a book (Tourner les mots: au bord d’un film, 2000) and to whom she dedicated some of her documentaries. She has been the director of programs at the International College of Philosophy in Paris.

About Safaa Fathy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI-zE3oht4Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPe2QfCN9Os


Francisco Rodríguez Sierra has a PhD in Arabic Philology from the University of Cadiz (2003) He has been a professor at the University of Granada’s Translation School (2006-2007) and a coordinator and Arabic language radio announcer for Spain’s Foreign Radio Service, Radio Exterior de España (2007-2011). Since 2011, he has been a professor with the Department of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. His focal points of research include mainly modern Arab novels and translation studies. He has had articles published about the translations of Don Quixote into Arabic and the view of this work by Cervantes in the Arab world. He is also a literary translator.
Through Forts and Frontiers: A conversation with Safaa Fathy