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Research Guides

    Modern Arabic Biography: Home

    Information on how to find biographies of modern Arab individuals.

    Catalog searches -- Subject Headings

    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.

    Specific Biographical Works

    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

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