Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s 57th Birthday

"My English was not good enough to read horror literature, so I started writing it myself,” said Egyptian doctor and author Ahmed Khaled Tawfik. Today’s Doodle celebrates the life and work of the first and most prolific Arab writer of horror and science fiction, born in Tanta, Egypt, on this day in 1962.

Growing up in a house full of books, he read works by Somerset Maugham, Mark Twain, Chekhov, and Tolstoy from his father’s extensive library. By the age of 10, Dr. Tawfik began writing his own adventure stories.

"You write to keep your mental stability," he said in an interview. However, making a living as a writer did not seem practical to Dr. Tawfik. Instead, he attended medical school, and later earned a PhD in tropical diseases and became a professor at his alma mater.

After writing secretly for many years, he accumulated a trove of manuscripts. "Every writer has close friends who tell him he is a genius, but I did not trust them,” he said, but eventually decided to send his work to a publisher. In January 1993, he published Ostorat Masas Al Demaa’a and Ostorat Al Rajol Al Tha’eb, the first of 80 installments in his Ma Waraa Al Tabiaa series of novels for young readers.

As a professor of medicine at Tanta University, Dr. Tawfik's education and career in medicine strongly influenced his work writing medical thrillers. He went on to author over 500 titles.

In this Doodle, he is depicted as writing on his desk, with some of his most notable characters in the background—Refaat Ismael, the main character of Ma Waraa Al Tabiaa in his famous suit, Alaa Abdel Azeem, the protagonist in Safari, and Abeer Abdel Rahman, the heroine of Fantazia.

Dr. Tawfik continues to be remembered as one of the most prolific Arab writers of his age.

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10.06.2019-Monday-திங்கள்-Doodle
Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s 57th Birthday
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