Hoda Barakat
Hoda Barakat was born in Beirut in 1952. In 1974 she was awarded a degree in French Literature by the Lebanese University in Beirut; she then taught for a year in the village of al-Khaim in the south of Lebanon. With the outbreak of civil war in 1975, Barakat moved to Bshari, a village in the north of Lebanon.
In 1975 she went to Paris to start a Ph.D., but because of the civil war she returned to Lebanon after one year and worked as a teacher, journalist and translator. Her first collection of short stories, .Za.irat. (Women Visitors), was published in 1985. From 1985 to 1986, Barakat worked at the Center for Lebanese Research, Beirut. In 1988, she helped establish Shahrazad, a women.s magazine. Her first novel, .Hajar al-Dahik. (The Stones of Laughter) was later translated into French, English and Italian. Her second novel, .Ahl el-Hawa. (People of Love), was published in 1993.
Hoda Barakat has lived and worked in Paris Since 1989.
Her latest work include .Hayatt w-alaam Hammad ben Silana.(1995), .Bus al-awadem.(1996), and .Ya Salaam.(1999)
This information was collected from In the House of Silence, autobiographical Essays by Arab women Writers, Edited By Fadia Faqir, Garnet Publishing, United Kingdom. 1998