Enayat al-Zayyat (Arabic: عنايات الزيات; 23 March 1936 – 5 January 1963)[1] was an Egyptian writer born in Cairo.
[5] Her mysterious suicide at a young age and the release of her posthumous novel[6] gave rise to her name in the Arab world at the time.
[7][9] In November 2019, poet Iman Mersal wrote a book about her,[10] trying to trace her lineage,[11] uncover her biography, and the secret behind her suicide, titled In the Wake of al-Zayyat (original: Fī athar ʻInāyāt al-Zayyāt).
Lutfi also points out that al-Zayyat sent her novel Love and Silence to the publishers, who first failed to respond and later rejected the book, claiming it was not fit for publication.
In her book, Iman Mersal points out that writer Anis Mansour dedicated most of the article to the presentation of the novel's plot and excerpts, but in the meantime gave scattered information about what he knew about al-Zayyat, including that he gave her his observations on the draft of her novel, which she refused to follow, and that the writer barely knew Arabic and that all her studies were in German.