The best way to find biographical dictionaries or biographies of specific modern Arabs is to search the catalog using subject headings. If you are working in the UW-only Catalog, change the default “Keyword” in the first box under Search to: “LC Subject”. If you are working in the Worldcat interface, precede your search by: "su:" "su:" forces Worldcat to search your phrase within subject headings instead as a group of separate keywords.
For individuals, use the formulas:
Name
Name – Bio-bibliography
Nasser, Gamal Abdel
Bio-bibliography means the book will contain not only a biography, but a full bibliography of the person's works. Few exist for the Arab world, but those few are very useful.
For biographical dictionaries, use these headings as a starting point.
Authors, Arab – Biography
Authors, Arab – Bio-bibliography
Arab countries – Biography
Arabs – Biography
Lebanon - Biography (for Lebanon, substitute the region, i.e. Middle East, country, region within a country, i.e. Amil Mountains, Lebanon, or city of your choice)
Muslims – Biography
Poets, Arab – Biography
Politicians – Lebanon (substitute geographical entity) – Biography
The last two examples represent the category of “Profession” – Geographical entity – Biography. Feel free to substitute other professions.
Campbell, Robert B., 1926-
Aʻlām al-adab al-ʻArabī al-muʻāṣir : sīrah wa-sīrah dhātīyah / iʻdād Rūbirt B. Kambill al-Yasūʻī
al-Ṭabʻah 1
Bayrūt, Lubnān : al-Maʻhad al-Alamānī lil-Abḥāth al-Sharqīyah, 1996
2 v. (1420 p.) : ports. ; 25 cm
Szref, szstx PJ7521 .C36 1996
Contemporary African writers / edited by Tanure Ojaide.
Detroit : Gale Cengage Learning, c2011.
xxiv, 432 p. : ill. ; 29 cm.
Dictionary of literary biography ; v. 360
Szref PN41 .D484 1978 v.360
Crosshatching in global culture : a dictionary of modern Arab writers : an updated English version of R.B. Campbell's "Contemporary Arab Writers" / edited by John J. Donohue and Leslie Tramontini.
Beirut : Orient-Institut der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft ; Würzburg : Ergon in Kommission, 2004.
2 v. (xxiii, 1215 p.) ; 24 cm.
Szref, szstx PJ7521 C76 2004
Essays in Arabic literary biography / general editor, Roger Allen.
Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2009.
3 v. ; 25 cm.
Vol. 3 covers 1850-1950
Szstx PJ7521 .E87 2009 v. 3
Moss, Joyce, 1951-
African literature and its times / Joyce Moss, Lorraine Valestuk
Detroit : Gale Group, c2000
xlv, 544 p. : ill. ; 29 cm
Boref, szref, taref PL8010 .M65 2000
Moss, Joyce, 1951-
Middle Eastern literatures and their times / Joyce Moss
Detroit : Thomson Gale, 2004
liii, 585 p. : ill., ports. ; 29 cm
Szstx, ugstx PJ307 .M67 2004
Twentieth-century Arab writers / edited by Majd Yaser Al-Mallah and Coeli Fitzpatrick.
Detroit : Gale Cengage Learning, c2009.
xxii, 391 p. : ill. ; 29 cm.
Dictionary of literary biography ; v. 346
Szref PN41 .D484 1978 v.346