Editors Note: Nehad Selaiha By Marvin Carlson Arab Stages, Volume 6, Nehad Selaiha Memorial Issue (Spring, 2017) ©2017 by Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publication
On January 6, 2017, the Arab theatre world lost one of its best-known, beloved, and distinguished figures, the Egyptian theatre critic Nehad Selaiha. In view of her centrality of her life and work to the aims and concerns of this publication, we are presenting a special memorial issue dedicated to her memory. The range and scope of her contributions cannot be quickly or easily represented or summarized, but we will offer a very modest selection of the central work of her life, a few of the literally hundreds of essays she wrote on every aspect of Egyptian and international theatre, followed by a few testimonials offered by some of the uncounted persons around the world whose lives she touched, enriched, and inspired. Several hundred essays from the past decade are available online at the website of al-Ahram, for which Selaiha has been drama critic for many years. We are here reprinting ten earlier essays to suggest her continuing interest in encouraging young dramatists, experimental work, and an international perspective.
Born in 1945, Selaiha studied English literature at Cairo University and then attended the University of Sussex in England where she obtained her MA in 1969. There both studying and performing Shakespeare, she formed her life-long bond to theatre. This was reinforced by her marriage to the leading theatre editor, scholar, translator and playwright Mohamed Enani.
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