Salma Lutfi Al-Haffar Al-Kowzbari

Salma Al- Haffar was one of the foremost Arab woman novelists and defenders of women’s rights and equality. Her father, Lutfi al-Haffar, was a Syrian prime minister during the French Mandate, and subsequently an avid supporter of Syrian independence. Although she was born during a time when it was against social norms for women to attend school, she was able, with her father’s support, to receive an excellent education in French and English at an elite Franciscan school in Damascus. Meanwhile, she studied and commanded Arabic under a distinguished Lebanese publisher, Mary Ajami, who encouraged her to write.

Al-Kowzbari published her first article at the age of 17 and had since written novels, short stories, and biographies in Arabic, and poetry in French. Following extensive travel in Latin America and Spain, she also gained interest in Spanish studies, particularly the Andalusian legacy. Her first book, an autobiography titled Hala’s Diaries in 1950 was translated to French and was eventually followed by another autobiography, Amber and Ashes. Her greatest passion, however, was to study the early 20th Century women’s rights heroine and literary figure, Mai Ziadeh. She spent 17 years researching Miss Ziadeh. She discovered previously unpublished documents, letters, and manuscripts from Ziadeh, including her two-decade correspondence with Kahlil Gibran. Her works on Ziadeh include Mai Ziadeh and the Tragedy of Genius in 1961, Accomplished Women in 1961.

Al-Kowzbari lived in Marbella, Spain, writing and lecturing in Arab and Western countries. In addition to the King Faisal  International Prize for Arabic Literature, she received a medal from the Spanish government in 1964, and the Mediterranean Literature Award from the University of Palermo in 1980 for her Arabic and Andalusian studies.

This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.