'Asht wa Shuft ... Muzakarat Leila Dous (I Lived and Saw) by Leila Dous, translated by Lamees Al-Naqqash, Dar Al-Mahroussa Publishing, Cairo, 2015. pp.278

Last April, Leila Dous passed away in total quietness after living a full and long life. She had almost reached one hundred years of loving life, her country and the people — especially the poor. She lived her life as she wished and she gave herself the freedom she believed in since her earliest signs of awareness. That freedom is the most precious thing she has. Thus, she was keen not to sacrifice it at any costs.

Perhaps her autobiography, which she witnessed published within a few weeks before her death, is one of the most significant and truthful of Arab women's autobiographies. The reader will feel this truthfulness from the very first pages and it grows as the reader continues to read.

From another perspective, a number of reasons and circumstances added to the significance of Leila Dous's, papers for she was an Upper Egyptian Copt from Assiut, born in 1917. Her father was the renowned lawyer Tawfiq Dous, who worked in his early career in the office of Sinot Hanna, one of the leaders of the 1919 Revolution.

Tawfiq Dous was appointed minister a number of times during the monarchy. Born in the Egyptian aristocracy, Leila started her life oceans apart from the path she chose for herself later. The villa that her father built in Zamalek was one of the first villas constructed in the famous aristocratic neighbourhood.

However, she swam against the tide. In 1936, she was only 19 years old when she established with a number of female scions of the Egyptian aristocracy a society for enhancing health. This society is Leila Dous's life story and history as much as it is a part of Egypt's life. She presented an image of charity work contrary to the stereotype of this kind of work in which Egyptian aristocratic ladies were engaged.  

It is true that social prestige, entertainment, passing leisure time, and superficial sentiments regarding being kind to humans and animals were the motivators for many of her peers in this class. But is also true that some considered charity work as conscious participation, a bond with their country and an attempt to alleviate the people's pain, to whom they belonged.

They spent time, effort and finances to found and build hundreds of charity societies. In the forefront of these societies, and the most influential, was the Health Enhancing Society in 1936, which focused its efforts mainly on Tuberculosis patients and their offspring, and built for this purpose a whole city on the outskirts of the desert in the district near the Pyramids, comprising residential buildings, schools, crafts-teaching workshops and relying on donations, grants and inventing new ways of gathering funds, such as parties and charity markets and inviting foreign embassies in order to raise the money necessary for expenditure.

The Health Enhancing Society occupies the biggest part of Dous's papers with details on names, incidents and events recorded. At the same time, she wrote this country's history from the eve of the 1919 Revolution until the 25 January 2011 Revolution, when she went to Tahrir Square in a wheelchair, and later to vote on the constitutional amendments. She intended to continue her participation, even if in the wheelchair. She spoke in a highly sentimental tone and with overflowing emotions on what she has felt about the youth in Tahrir Square whence the revolution broke. However, in the last three years, she broke a foot in an accident and thus was kept from continuing to participate.

Unlike much of her generation and the next, Dous was singular in practising the highest degree of courage in expressing herself and her emotional life in her papers. I don't mean here that she revealed secrets of a scandalous nature, for she didn't mention the names of those she was engaged with in an emotional or a sexual relationship. What she cared most about was being truthful first and to present her experience, for which she paid in full price. Thus, she doesn't condemn or yell or express her joy. All this doesn't interest Dous. What really interested her was conveying her experience.

Anyway, Dous didn't write only her own story. She also wrote her country's history and the history of its political movements as well, through her work in the Health Enhancing Society, which obliged her to establish relations with the country's rulers, beginning with King Farouk I and then the Free Officers coup, and then Mohammed Naguib. However, her relation with Gamal Abdel Nasser wasn't good and she was prevented from traveling for nine years. She didn't regain her freedom but after Nasser's death. Only then did she return to her old love of wandering.

In this context, Leila Dous was one of the most professional of female travellers in exploring new horizons. There isn't almost a place that she didn't visit, whether in Egypt's oases, countryside and Upper Egypt in long journeys and in desert camping. In addition, her travels outside Egypt included Africa, most of Asia and Europe, and the United States. She drove through most of Europe accompanied by friends.

One of the strangest things that Dous mentions concerns her education, for she didn't complete her regular education until she reached 65 years. At this age, she joined British Council courses, got her GCEs and enrolled in the American University in Cairo. She passed her exams with flying colours. In 1981, her female colleagues grew envious when she was seen in the company of a handsome young man in the aforementioned university. She told them that his grandmother was her friend in her youth! During the next 10 years, she completed a Masters degree then a PhD in comparative literature after reaching 75.

These are the broad lines of the legendary journey of Leila Dous who lived her life as it really should be lived. Finally, it is noteworthy to mention that the original language in which the book was written was English, which Dous express herself best in. The autobiography wasn't published until its Arabic translation was completed and she was able to see it. Shortly after, this wonderful life ended.