Emily Nasrallah

On 6 February 2018, President Michel Aoun decorated her with the Cedar Medal of Honor, Commander Rank. Nasrallah said on the occasion that this was one of the happiest days of her life. When due to health reasons, Nasrallah was unable to attend the award event scheduled to be held at the Presidential Palace, President Aoun sent Minister of Justice Salim Jreissaty to represent him in Nasrallah's home, where the decoration ceremony took place.

On 28 August 2017, as part of Language is Key endorsed by the institute, Nasrallah was accorded the Goethel Medal, a German award granted to non-Germans. Furthermore, on 6 February 2018, Nasrallah was awarded the Cedar Medal of Honor, Commander Rank by the President of the Lebanese Republic Michel Aoun for her literary engagement.

On 28 August 2017, the Goethe-Institut awarded Nasrallah with the Goethe Medal for her work in different genres, from novels to short stories, from poetry to autobiographical prose, an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany honoring non-Germans for meritorious contributions in the spirit of the institute.

Nasrallah's A cat's diary figured on the 1998 IBBY honor list. The book depicts the horrors of war in Beirut from the viewpoint of Zicco (Zeeko) a Siamese cat and his friend, the girl Mona.

She also tutored, wrote magazine articles in Sawt al Mar'a and lent her voice to the national radio (al-itha'a al-lubnaniyya) to repay her debt to Jalila and pay for her college education at the Beirut College for Women and the American University of Beirut where she majored with a Bachelor of Arts in education and literature in 1958.

Emily married Philip Nasrallah, a chemist from Zahleh in 1957 while still in college. The couple had four children: Ramzi, Maha, Khalil, and Mona. She never left Beirut, even at the peak of the Lebanese civil war. She became one of the Beirut Decentrists.

She graduated from the Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University) with an associate degree in arts in 1956. Two years later, she obtained a BA in education and literature from the American University of Beirut. She published her first novel "Birds of September" in 1962; the book was instantly acclaimed, and won three Arabic literary prizes. "Flight Against Time" was Nasrallah's first novel to be translated into English, published by the Canada-based Ragweed Press.

In 1955, Amal Makdessy Kortas (director of the Ahliah school) offered Nasrallah a job and lodging at the school in Wadi Abu Jamil; she taught for two hours daily at the school where Hanan al-Shaykh had been her pupil. She fell short of paying her college education tuition and was financially aided by her friend and colleague at the Ahlia school, Jalila Srour.

In 1955, Nasrallah was introduced to Jacqueline Nahas, a journalist at as-Sayyad publishing house, and started her 15 years long career at as-Sayyad (the hunter) magazine writing in the society news section; she also contributed articles to Al Anwar newspaper. Between 1973 and 1975, she worked as cultural and public relation consultant at the Beirut University College before joining Fayruz magazine from 1981 till 1987 as a feature editor.

Nasrallah credited Nassim Nasser, her Arabic language teacher, for helping to develop her writing skills and orienting her through his "red correction pen harsh criticism". He was the first to publish her writings in the Telegraph, a local Beirutine magazine, in 1949 and 1950; he also encouraged and selected her to participate in composition and rhetoric contests.

Emily Daoud Nasrallah (Arabic: إيميلي داود نصر الله) (née Abi Rached; 6 July 1931 – 13 March 2018) was a Lebanese writer and women's rights activist.