SCULPTOR Mai Ghoussoub (1952-2007), founder of the London-based Al-Saqi Books, passed away on Tuesday following a brief illness, at the age of 54. Ghoussoub studied French literature at the Lebanese University, earning a diploma in mathematics from the American University in Beirut as well. In 1979 she moved with her husband, well-known Al-Hayat journalist Hazem Saghya, to Paris, from whence to London, where she studied sculpture and eventually founded the bilingual publishing house Al-Saqi Books, which produced, among much else, Arabic literature in English translation and a wide range of art books.Ghoussoub was a writer and translator as well as an artist; and her mastery of three languages -- French, English and Arabic -- helped her achieve a rare mastery of the most pressing cultural issues; she wrote on art and politics, on Arab history and post-modernism, and notably on womanhood and patriarchal society; she exhibited widely in Paris, London and Beirut. Her last work was a play, Qatalat Al-Kitab (Book Killers), performed in Beirut in April 2006.
