User:Julijones1/Ali Salem

Ali Salem, also transliterated Ali Salim, (على سالم, ; 24 February 1936 – 22 September 2015) was an Egyptian playwright, author, and political commentator he was best known for controversially endorsing cooperation with Israel. The Los Angeles Times once described him as "a big, loud man known for his satiric wit".

Early Life
Ali Salem was born in the Damietta Governorate of Egypt in 1936. The oldest of eight, his mother was housewife and his father was a policeman. One of his brothers died fighting in the 1945 battle over British Palestine at the age of twelve. Just nine years later, in 1957, he lost his father while studying at a university for his bachelors degree. Being the oldest among his siblings, Salem dropped out of school and returned back home in order to support his young brothers and mother. During this time, he worked in public transport around Damietta where his family lived.

Career
Salem’s first satirical theater piece premiered when he was just 24. He then proceeded to write 25 more plays over his lifetime. He also produced 15 collections of satirical stories, as well as political articles in Asharq al-Awsat and other Egyptian dailies. From the premiere of his first play in 1965, he wrote 25 plays and 15 books. One of the best known, The School of Troublemakers, debuted in 1971 and featured a rowdy class of children transformed by a kind teacher. His plays The Phantom of Heliopolis, The Comedy of Oedipus, The Man Who Fooled the Angels, and The Buffet have also become "classics of the Egyptian theater". Salem's plays often include allegorical critiques of Egyptian politics with a strong vein of humor and satire.

In 1994, he wrote a book entitled My Drive to Israel about a trip he took to the country to satisfy his curiosity about it following the signing of the Oslo Accords. He later claimed that the trip was not "a love trip, but a serious attempt to get rid of hate. Hatred prevents us from knowing reality as it is". He spent 23 nights in Israel and concluded that "real co-operation" between the two nations should be possible. Though the book sold more than 60,000 copies, a bestseller by Egyptian standards, it provoked controversy, and Salem was subsequently ostracized from the Egyptian intellectual community and expelled from its Writer's Syndicate as a result of his "propaganda." He did not have a play or movie script produced in Egypt after the book's publication, though he continued to contribute columns to foreign media such as the London-based Al Hayat. Salem's memoir was later adapted by Ari Roth into the play Ali Salem Drives to Israel, which had its world premiere in the US in 2005.

Controversy over his actions did not stop there, Salem was renowned for being a very bold and controversial speaker. After the attacks at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, Salem spoke publicly about starting a "kindergarten for extremists" in which he was quoted as saying; "Kids, don’t believe that others worship the same god as we do they are infidels. The task for which I am preparing you is to purge the world of them. Dear children, hate music. Hate all manner of artistic, literary, or scientific endeavor. Hate tenderness. Hate reason and intellect. Hate your families. Hate yourselves. Hate your teachers. Hate me. Hate others—all others. Hate this school. Hate life, and everything in it. Go on, get to class.” He shared his beliefs about different cultures through his writing.

Salem one of the supporters of peace between Arabs and Israel, so he agreed to assist he late president of Egypt Anwar Sadat because he played a crucial role in establishing peaceful relations between one another in 1977. Because of wanting the peace between Arabs and Israel; Egyptians and Arabs stood against him, but he stood up with his point.

In 2008, he won the Train Foundation's $50,000 Civil Courage Prize in recognition of his opposition to radical Islam and his support of cooperation with Israel. He also received an honorary doctorate from Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2005.

Ali Salem died because of a heart attack in Cairo on September 22nd, 2015. For his final words, he was quoted as saying "What else can they do? They can't catch Israel, they can't catch America, but they can catch Ali Salem". Many Arab writers mourned his death. Mamoun Fandy, a famous Arab writer said "Ali Salem is the greatest writer, and he was bigger than what people imagined."

Information about Salem's shows
Ali Salem wrote his first play “Welad Al-afaryt Al-zrqa” in 1965. He became famous after writing “Madrsat Almoshagben” in 1980. In short, this play was about students who treated teachers poorly. Even though some Egyptian people enjoyed this play the most out of any of Ali's plays, he also received much criticism due to this play affecting students' behaviors in class.

Here is a list of Ali Salem's most popular plays:

Awards

 * Civil Courage Prize received in 2008 by the Train Foundation


 * Honorary Doctorate by the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Notable Works

 * The Comedy of Oedipus
 * The Phantom of Heliopolis
 * School of Troublemakers
 * My Drive to Israel
 * The Man Who Fooled the Angels
 * The Buffet
 * Oghneya Ala El Mamar

Articles

 * Hugi, Jacky. "Death of Egyptian author who drove across Israel leaves void in Israeli-Egyptian relations", Al-Monitor on-line magazine; 30 Sept. 2015.
 * Mikics, David. "The Muslim World's Intellectual Refuseniks Offer Enlightened Views on Islam and Israel", TabletMag.com on-line magazine; 3 Dec. 2013.