Abdul-Tawab Yossef

He died on 28 September 2015, three days before his 87th birthday.

Abdel-Tawab Youssef died on the afternoon of Monday 28 September 2015, three days before his 87th birthday, following a health crisis that had afflicted him for several months. He left more than 1,000 children's books, achieving a record for a writer in Egypt and the world. The funeral took place at the Hosary Mosque on 6 October.

Abdul Tawab-Yousef visited the United Arab Emirates to follow up on literacy efforts and participated in seminars and activities to eradicate illiteracy for children in Arab countries. Attended the Dubai Symposium on Children's Literature in 2004. An envoy from UNESCO, he visited Qatar three times to participate in seminars. Founded and headed the Children's Culture Association since 1968.

He earned a BA degree in political science from Cairo University. After graduating, he worked as a supervisor for school radio programs at the Ministry of Education. Then he headed the Department of Journalism, Radio and Television. He works so until he devoted himself to writing for children since 1975. He had the idea of issuing the first Islamic magazine for children, Paradise (Al-firdous) in 1969, and established the first conference on Child Culture in 1970.

In the early 1970s, his first trips to the outside world was to Europe, and on this trip he got acquainted with new dimensions in the field of children's literature, then his interest in new dimensions increased when the Cairo International Book Fair was held, which allowed him to learn about the various schools and trends that interest children and write for him. He chose to write about religious aspect, nationalism, national values, educational attempts, science and its fields, the Arabic language, its nobility, ancient and modern, humanistic trends, recreation and entertainment, writing for the child and about the child and childhood. Until he devoted himself to writing for children since 1975, after a five-year break in political work. He stated in one of his press interviews, saying: “He showed me more of a reader than I am a writer, and during my travels I bought thousands of books until I had a library that says those who visited it from the English And the Americans, it is the largest home library for children in the world.”

In 1956, he married Natila Ibrahim Rashid, former editor-in-chief of Samir Magazine and Crescent Books for Children, winner of the State Prize in Children's Literature in 1978 and the First Class Medal of Science and Arts.

His first children's work was broadcast on the Papa Charu program on 19 December 1950.

Since then, he wrote thousands of programs for children, which were presented on all Arab radio stations. He worked as a supervisor for school radio programs at the Ministry of Education after graduating from the university from 1950 to 1960. Then he headed the Department of Journalism, Radio and Television in them from 1960 to 1971; Then he headed the Culture Department from 1971 to 1975.

He moved to Cairo in 1945 to begin his university studies at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University until he obtained a bachelor's degree in 1949. Six months after his graduation in January 1950, his father died, which posed a great challenge to him in his life, as he decided to move to Cairo With his mother and three sisters, between the ages of six and ten, to live, earn a living and educate his sisters. He obtained a master's degree in 1953.

Also known as Abd Al-Tawwab Yousef Ahmad Yousef, Abdel-Tawab Yusuf, and Abdel-Tawab Jusef, he was born in the village of Shanra, Beni Suef Governorate, Egypt, on 1 October 1928.

Abdel Tawab-Youssef was born in the village of Shanra, in the city of Al-Fashn, in the governorate of Beni Suef, on 1 October 1928. He received his primary and secondary education in the city of Beni Suef. He lived his childhood in the villages of Egypt and expressed this in his stories and creative works, as he used to rent novels and books to read and then repeat their story to his friends who are children.