By Mursi Saad El-Din I don't really know how is it that I have not presented Doreen Anwar until now. She has, not only fallen under the spell of Egypt and settled down here, but she has contributed a great deal to the process of introducing Egypt to the world. I met Doreen the first time when I came back from London in 1957. She was working in the European Department of the Egyptian Radio and together we presented a number of programmes. One of them in particular I remember with joy. It was called the Diwan of the Poets, Diwan being an Arabic word which means anthology. In that programme we introduced Arabic poetry to the English listeners, materially through English translations which I did and she revised. It was quite a successful programme which lasted for a few years. Another programme she did was visits to main projects in the rural areas for the improvement of the peasants' lot, reporting in social centres, activities of cooperative societies and all that had to do with the countryside. Later on our cooperation took another form when she started a series of articles in "Cairo Today" an English language magazine of which I was editor-in-chief. As the title suggests, the articles dealt with different aspects of Egyptian life, Egyptian traditions and Egyptian manners and customs. She wrote about all the festivals which Egyptians celebrated like Moulid El Nabi, the Birth of the Prophet, Sham El Nessim which marked the beginning of spring and many other such occasions. She published a book with the title of "Nile Reflections", which is an anthology of radio broadcasts, magazine articles and other short essays, which can be regarded as a jotting down of personal memoirs. These articles, talks and essays reflect a real insight into Egyptian life. No wonder, since Doreen was married to an Egyptian and what is more she lived in the house of his family for fifteen years. These years of Egyptian family life gave her an unusual opportunity to understand both the people and the language. Doreen lived quite an international life. She first lived in Hong Kong with her parents for four years from the age of 8 till 12. This gave her the chance of meeting people of different nationalities and different cultures. Hong Kong was a place where people of all nations rubbed shoulders. It was on the sea trips to and from Hong Kong that she came to see Egypt. Ships on the long sea voyages had to cross the Suez Canal, and to stop at Port Said where one got the feel of the country, that is if one is interested in knowledge. Doreen was, and those stops made lasting impressions. During the second world war, Doreen worked for the BBC, where she first met her husband, an engineer who was working in London; and who got caught up by the war. He could not return to Egypt until the war ended, and in 1946, they came back to Egypt, where she had to live with her husband's family. As I said this period gave her the opportunity of both learning Arabic and, at the same time, reaching deep into Egyptian life. No wonder she has been able to learn all about Egyptian traditions and beliefs. She was, in many ways, similar to William Lane, but unlike Lane she was not just a participant observer, but a member of Egyptian society, adopting its ways, manners and customs. This knowledge helped her, especially in her career as a broadcaster. It also contributed to her great success as a teacher of English at schools and later at the American University. She has been doing this for almost thirty years. Doreen had a great tragedy in her life, when her only daughter Noreen died of Hodgkin's disease at the early age of twenty. One can imagine the state Doreen must have gone through, but she was able to go through her agony with courage and resolve. She turned to writing and wrote down the tragic story of her daughter in a book called We Live and Remember: the Story of Noreen Teresa. Doreen, in her Nile Reflections remembers radio programmes she enjoyed presenting. One of them was "Radio's ?" in which Dr Ahmed Fakhry, Professor of Archaeology, takes the visitors on a tour of the important monuments of Egypt. It was a light hearted programme yet abound with scholarly information.
