Arabic Learning/Teaching Activity/Book/Film

Ghada Abdel Aal’s hilarious blog, عايزة أتجوز / I Want to Get Married was turned into a book, which has been translated into several languages. It was also adapted to an Egyptian musalsal / TV show. You can see it here. There are reviews of the book in The National here and on Muslimah Media Watch here.

I heard Ghada Abdel Aal speak in Austin, TX in 2010, and she seemed extremely intelligent, witty, and articulate. She was attending the U. of Iowa program for international writers at that time. She spoke about the freedom of blogging, and how it provides a place for sharing one’s feelings and thoughts openly, especially for young people. She uses colloquial language because it is good for satire, resembling the language used in conversation, as if you were sitting together in a coffee shop. Her blog was controversial because it publicized a girl’s private desires.

She grew up in a small town north of Cairo, where there were no bookstores or cultural centers, so she would go to the annual book fair in Cairo every year, and buy about 50 books with her saved-up money to last her for the year. She read Arabic literature only, and studied at the university in Tanta.

One statement from her speech that I wrote in my notes:
“I don’t believe in this trend of writers writing for other writers. No, I write for my readers.” She said that her intended audience was women of Egypt and the Gulf region.

For Intermediate-level learners of Arabic, see the below worksheet for watching some excerpts from this TV series, answering some questions, and learning some Egyptian Arabic phrases.