Emily Nasrallah
  • Gender:Female
  • ISNI:0000000121328361
  • Year of Birth:1931, Kaukaba, Lebanon
  • Year of Death:2018, Beirut, Lebanon
  • Education:Beirut, Lebanon
Biography

Emily Daoud Nasrallah (6 July 1931 – 13 March 2018) was a Lebanese writer and women's rights activist.

She was a graduate of the Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University) with an associate degree in Arts in 1956, then continued her studies to earn a BA in education and literature from the American University of Beirut in 1958. She deserved acclaim for her writing with the publication of her first novel, Birds of September, in 1962. The book earned her instant praise and three Arabic literary prizes. She became a prolific writer, publishing many novels, children's stories and short story collections touching on themes such as family, village life, war, emigration and women's rights. The latter was a subject she has maintained support for throughout her life.

After finishing her studies at the elementary public school of the village which only offered education till the third elementary grade at that time, Nasrallah wrote a letter to her second maternal uncle, an expatriate businessman in West Virginia, expressing her interest in pursuing higher education and explaining her family's dire financial circumstances that prevented her from paying private schooling fees. Her uncle granted her wish and paid for her tuition.

She left her hometown when she was sixteen years of age to pursue her education at the Choueifat National College, a boarding school in the suburbs of Beirut.

She studied in the Choueifat school for four years, during this period her passion for literature deepened as she became an avid reader. She compensated for the absence of a library in her hometown with spending many hours at the Choueifat school library; since she had no resources to buy books, she smuggled Mikha'il Na'ima and Khalil Gibran books – which would influence her writing career greatly – from the college library in order to read them illicitly in her bed. Her fondness of reading was ever-growing, she admitted enjoying the 'interesting reading material' found in the journal and magazine shreds that enveloped dragées and other sweets.

Nasrallah credited Nassim Nasser, her Arabic language teacher, for helping to develop her writing skills and orienting her through his "red correction pen harsh criticism". He was the first to publish her writings in the Telegraph, a local Beirutine magazine, in 1949 and 1950; he also encouraged and selected her to participate in composition and rhetoric contests.

Published works
  • Tuyur Aylul (The Birds of September), By (author), Naufal, 1991, Book
  • Al-Iqlaʿ ʿAks Al-zaman (Flight Against Time), By (author), Naufal, 2001, Book
  • Yawmiyat Hirr (A Cat's Diary), By (author), Dar Al Kitab Al Alami, 1999, Book
  • Al-Rahina (The Hostage), By (author), Naufal, 1996, ISBN-10, 9953260117, Book
  • Shajarat Al-Difla (The Olenader Tree), By (author), Naufal, 2003, ISBN-13, 9789953260297, Book
  • Rawat lia Al-ayyam (Days Recounted), By (author), Dar Al Ebda', 2009, ISBN-13, 9789953444673, Book
  • Tilka l-dhikrayat (Those Memories), By (author), Naufal, 1986, Book