Raouf Mousaad Basta

was born in 1937 in Sudan. He studied journalism in Cairo and joined a left-wing organisation. He was imprisoned for several years, after which he left Egypt to study theatre direction in Poland at Theatre Laboratory of Jerzy Grotowski. In 1982 he rediscovered Cairo, where he founded the  Shouhdy publishing house. Today he lives in Amsterdam. After several plays, and a book about the Aswan High Dam written with  Sonallah Ibrahim  and Kamal at the end of the 1960s, Mousaad Basta returned to the literary scene 30 years later with his acclaimed autobiographical novel The Ostrich Egg, translated and published in French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Swedish editions as part of the Mémoires de la Méditerranée publishing project.