14 Facts About Afifa Karam

Afifa Karam was a Lebanese-American journalist, novelist, and translator.

Afifa Karam was an advocate for women's rights in the Mahjar, or Arab diaspora, and of Arab Feminism.

Afifa Karam was born in Amsheet, then in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, to Yusuf Salih Karam and Frusina Habib Sharbel.

Afifa Karam's family were wealthy Maronites, and her father Yusuf was a doctor in the Ottoman army.

Afifa Karam was educated in local missionary schools until the untimely and unexpected death of her father when she was thirteen.

That same year, Afifa Karam founded The New World: A Ladies Monthly Arabic Magazine which gave way two years later to a second publication, Syrian Woman, founded by Afifa Karam in 1913.

At the age of 23, Afifa Karam made her literary debut in Al-Hoda.

Afifa Karam took a six-month hiatus from her journalistic work to devote her efforts to the writing of her first novel, Badi'a and Fu'ad, published in 1906 by Al-Hoda Press.

Afifa Karam criticized restrictive gender roles and practices that she deemed oppressive to women.

Afifa Karam's stories show man as oppressor and woman as oppressed, and condemn the governmental and religious institutions that uphold such unjust practices in Lebanon.

Afifa Karam's novels did not circulate widely in the Arab world.

Nonetheless, Afifa Karam's novels are some of the earliest Arabic literary texts written in that form.

Afifa Karam was mentioned twice as a biographical subject in that journal, first in 1908, and later in 1924, when its founder Labiba Hashim wrote her obituary.

Afifa Karam walked before them, bearing the banner of literary freedom: 'woman is the foundation of the nation's ascent.