(1933- )

Halim Barakat is an Arab novelist and sociologist. He was born in 1933 into a Greek Orthodox family in Kafroun, Syria, and raised in Beirut. Barakat studied sociology at the American University of Beirut. He received his bachelor"s degree in 1955 and his master"s degree in 1960. He received his PhD in social psychology in 1966 from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

From 1966 until 1972 he taught at the American University of Beirut. He then served as research fellow at Harvard University until 1973, and taught at the University of Texas at Austin in 1975-1976. From 1976 until 2002 he conducted research in the field of society and culture at The Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of Georgetown University.

Barakat has written over eighteen books and some fifty essays on society and culture in journals such as the British Journal of Sociology, the Middle East Journal, Mawakif and al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi. His publications are primarily concerned with difficulties facing modern Arab societies such as alienation, crisis of civil society, and a need for identity, freedom and justice.

He has also published six novels and a collection of short stories. Translations of his fictional works have appeared in English, French, German and Japanese including Days of Dust, Six Days (Lynne Rienner), and Le Vaisseau Reprend Le Large. His novel Six Days (Sittat Ayam, 1961) precedes the war of June 1967. It became a prelude to the later novel Days of Dust ("Awdat al-Ta"ir ila al-Bahr, 1969). His other works of fiction include al-Qimam al-Khadra" (Green Summits, 1956) , al-Samt wal-Matar (Silence and Rain, 1958), al-Rahil Baina al-Sahm wal-Watar (A Journy Between The Arrow An The Cord, 1979), Ta"ir al-Hawm (The Crane, 1988), and Innana wal-Nahr (Inana and The River,1995).

Reference: Halim Barakat http://www.halimbarakat.com/