Asfour was born in El-Mahalla El-Kubra in the central Nile Delta on 25 March 1944.

He graduated from the Arabic Language Department of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University in 1965.

Asfour was a well-known critic and professor of Arabic Literature at Cairo University.

He served as the head of the Supreme Council for Culture.

He was instrumental in establishing the National Centre for Translation (NCT), one of the ministry's most successful translation project, which he also headed.

Asfour authored several books including "In Defence of Enlightenment" and "Times of the Novel".

He served as culture minister twice, very briefly in early 2011 in the lasrt days of former President Hosni Mubarak before resigning and again in 2014-2015.