Taha Mahmoud Taha

Taha Mahmoud Taha (Arabic: طه محمود طه) (1929 – April 16, 2002), an Egyptian professor and translator. One of his most famous works is the translation of Ulysses, a novel by James Joyce.

Taha passed away on the 16th of April 2002 (corresponding to 4/2/1423H) at the age of 73.

Taha's translation of the first edition of James Joyce's novel Ulysses was issued in 1982. He had begun translating the novel in 1964. He published the fourth chapter in “Al-Kateb” magazine in May 1964, under the heading “45 minutes in Mr. Bloom’s life”, with an introduction and an annotation for the text. Then he published the translation of chapter 10 “The Little Maze in Ulysses” in The “Majalla” magazine – which was headed by the editor Yahya Haqqi – in November 1965. By 1978, Taha finished translating all the chapters of the novel, only to publish the translation of the whole novel to Arabic for the first time in 1982.

Taha writes in the preface of his book “the Encyclopedia of James Joyce, 1974” about the beginning of his interest in James Joyce’s literature:

“I became interested in James Joyce and his work since 1953. And the visiting professor of the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University, David Peter Edgell, encouraged me to read his work and reduce the severity of its opacity.”

Taha Mahmoud Taha was born in 1929. After high school, he attended the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University, where he graduated and was appointed a teaching assistant. After Taha had obtained his master's degree, he received a doctoral scholarship at University of Dublin in Ireland, 1957. His PhD dissertation was about Aldous Huxley whom Taha had been sending mails since 1955. Taha returned to Cairo in February 1961 after he had obtained his PhD degree, and he joined the Faculty of Arts at Ain Shams University. However, he soon left the university in 1966 and dedicated his time to translation. He, then, returned again to academia by contracting with Kuwait University as an associate professor for modern English literature. He worked in Kuwait for 18 years. One of his achievements during that period was finishing “the Encyclopedia of James Joyce” which was issued in 1974 with the university's support. Dr. Taha worked as a teacher at King Saud University in Riyadh from 1961 to 1963.

Because of Taha’s huge efforts in transmitting Joyce’s heritage to the Arab world, he gained the membership of “James Joyce Society”. This Society gathers those who are interested in Joyce's literature and are occupied with his works. It issues a quarterly magazine addressing further discoveries of his rich works. The Society organizes a biennial meeting assembling its members on the 16th of June of each year (it is the day on which Joyce chose to write his events in his novel “Ulysses”, all the actions of the novel take place throughout 16 June 1904.