Google payed its respect to the late novelist, activist and scholar Latifa Al Zayyat on what would have been her 92nd birthday Saturday by creating a doodle of the much beloved and idolized individual.
One of her most famous works is the "Open Doors" chronicles which tells the story of political unrest in Cairo and the Suez Crisis during 1946 and 1956. The novel, which was translated into various languages due to its surprising success and turned into a popular film, also talks about the sexual awakening of the main character, Layla – a topic that is rarely discussed in the country.
Zayyat was born in Dumyat, Egypt, in 1923 and went on to earn her bachelors degree from the Cairo University and earned her PhD in 1957. Zayyat didn't stop there, and along with her friend Inji Efflatoun, she went on to found The League of University Institutes For Young Women in 1945.
The Egyptian activist and novelist won the inaugural Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for her novel "The open Door." However to this day, the celebrated writer remains unknown to many of today's youth, especially Egyptians. This makes the Google doodle even greater; it resurrected the image and revived the interest to celebrate not only Egyptians, but Egyptian women who have contributed positively to their homeland.