Egypt: Anis Mansour Commemorating Hussein Bikar

A most prominent and respected Egyptian writer and "renaissance man" Anis Mansour just published an article on 10 January 2007, commemorating the passing of his old friend the well-known Egyptian artist and national treasure Hussein Amin Bikar, who is one of the prominent Egyptian Baha'is referred to previously on this blog, and to whose memory a tribute was published in this previous post. The article was published in the widely-read international Arabic magazine named Al-Sharq Al Awsat [The Middle East].

The following excerpt describing the author Anis Mansour was taken from Egypt State Information Service:

Anis Mansour stands out as a bright star in Egypt's history of philosophy, literature, science and politics. He is considered an encyclopedic and prolific writer.

He was born on August 18, 1925 in the central Delta city of AL-Mansoura. In 1947, he obtained his BA in philosophy. Mansour masters Arabic, English, French, Italian, Greek and Hebrew. He worked as a philosophy professor for 17 years.

His journalistic career began in 1947 when he joined "Al-Asas" newspaper staff. Three years later, in 1950, he moved to "Rose El-Youssef" magazine for some time. He joined "Al-Ahram" daily where he worked as translator. There, he translated some short stories and poems from German into Arabic. In 1976, Mansour was named editor-in-chief of "Akher Saa" and "October" magazines.

Mansour published about 177 books in different fields. He also translated some 200 German, French and English short stories and 24 plays into Arabic. He also wrote 15 comedies and other 12 television drama serials.

Chief among Mansour's writings is the book "Around the World in 200 Days". The book is seen as an in-depth account of the tales and facts of many countries.

In his article, Anis Mansour speaks of his lifelong friendship of forty years with Hussein Bikar. He uses poetic language and simile that would be extremely difficult to do justice to by translating it into English, thus it will suffice to just point out the highlights of his article here. Those familiar with Arabic can simply click on the above links in order to read the full article.

In his title, he compares Bikar to a silk-making Caterpillar that, in his art, he was just as if he was weaving a silk fabric of the highest quality. He spoke of his talent not only in painting, but also in music and singing.

He also pointed out that even though a Caterpillar might not be one of the most appealing creatures, in contrast Bikar was appealing in appearance and in spirit. He stated "No one hated him, and he never hated anyone...how come? This is the difficult dilemma that we had lost four years ago" [the passing of Bikar].

He also told of how pleased he was that Hussein Bikar had painted several of his book covers which have been "artistic treasures." He spoke of Bikar's debut as a musician and composer, and that some of his first compositions were made for King Farouk, and that his fingers did not stop at that but moved on to paper with his illustrious drawings.

He concluded by asking for God's Mercy on Bikar's soul just as Bikar had dreamt [wanted] it to be.