Nobel Prize winners are one of the world’s greatest honors. However, in Egypt, any successful person always gets bashed by tons of criticism. But at the end of the day, they are the ones who we are proud of the most.
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1964, was born in 1920 in Egypt. She lived for 11 years in the English expatriate community in Egypt, then later traveled to England to peruse her dreams, where she studied at the Sir John Leman Grammar School and the University of Oxford.
From her early ages, she was passionate about chemistry and after 30 years of work, she won a Nobel Prize. Five years later, she deciphered the structure of insulin.
Ahmed Zewail
Ahmed Hassan Zewail, born in Egypt 1946, won a Nobel Prize in 1999 in Chemistry. He is known as the father of Femtochemistry. He studied in Alexandria, where he received a Bachelor’s degree and a MSc in Chemistry. He later completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California.
Zewail became a naturalized U.S. citizen and was nominated to President Barack Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He won the Nobel Prize for his works in chemical reactions across femtoseconds and was awarded the Albert Einstein World Award of Science along with more than 30 other honorary degrees.
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz, born in Egypt in 1911, won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988. He is one of the most recognized Egyptian writers, publishing numerous novels, short stories, journalism, memoirs, essays and screenplays. Since he was young, Mahfouz loved reading and writing and was inspired by the likes of Franz Kafka and James Joyce.
Mahfouz is the only Arab to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He said, “The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level. The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition.”
Anwar El Sadat
Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, born 1918 in Egypt, is the first Muslim Nobel Laureate. Egypt’s third president, he became a hero for Egyptians and Arabs when he regained Sinai after it was occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Afterwards, he negotiated a peace treaty with Israel, for which he was criticized, called a traitor and was given a Nobel Peace Prize.
Not surprisingly, El Sadat was assassinated. While all facts proved that Islamists were responsible for the assassination, Sadat’s nephew, Talaat el-Sadat, claimed that it was a bigger conspiracy that involved Egypt’s Armed Forces, the United States and Israel.
Yasser Arafat
Yes, Yasser Arafat, the famous Palestinian leader, is actually Egyptian. He was born 1929 in Cairo, Egypt, to Palestinian parents and Egyptian grandparents. When he was young, he was beaten by his father for going to the Jewish Quarter in Egypt. However, Arafat later claimed that he only wanted “to study the Jewish mentality”. Afterwards, his father sent him to Jerusalem.
Arafat became the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and leader of the Fatah political party. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to create peace in the Middle East in the negotiations at Oslo.
Mohamed El Baradei
Mohamed El Baradei, born in 1942, won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for preventing the military from using nuclear energy and instead applying it in the safest possible ways. A former Vice President and diplomat, El Baradei received a Bachelor’s degree in Law from Cairo University, a Master’s degree in International Law from Geneva and a Doctoral of Juridical Science in International Law from New York. He was also the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) three times in a row.
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