Ramziya al-Iryani

Ramziya Abbas al-Iryani (1954 - November 11, 2013) was a pioneering Yemeni novelist, writer, diplomat and feminist.

Biography

She was born in the village of Iryan in the Ibb Governorate, went to secondary school in Taiz and then studied philosophy at Cairo University earning a Bachelor's degree in 1977. She also had a Master's in Arabic literature. In 1979, she became the first female diplomat to join the Yemeni diplomatic corps. She was head of the Yemeni Women's Union, and was a board member of the Arab Family Organization.^[1]

Ramziya started publishing when still in her teens. Her novel Dahiyat al-Jasha (The Victim of Greed), published in 1970-71, is considered to be the first novel by a Yemeni woman.^[2] Her first book of short stories La'allahu ya'ud (Maybe He'll Return) was published from Damascus in 1981. Since then, she has written several more volumes of fiction as well as several children's books. She has also written a book on Yemeni women pioneers called Raidat Yemeniyat (1990).

Ramziya's short stories have appeared in English translation in a recent anthology of Arab women writers.^[3]

References