Tawfiq Yusuf 'Awwad (Arabic: توفيق يوسف عواد; 28 November 1911 – 16 April 1989) was a Lebanese writer and diplomat.
The 1916 famine in Mount Lebanon forced Tawfiq and his family to leave their hometown and move to Zahle, where his father opened a small restaurant.
During his free time, he would create impressions of inanimate objects that surrounded him[clarification needed], which later inspired and became the basis of one of his novels, al-Raghif (The Loaf).
[2] He was heavily influenced by the stories read to him by his grandmother in the book One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: ألف ليلة وليلة).
He was also inspired by French novelists and Arab writers and poets such as Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī (ابو الفرج الاصفهاني), Al- Mutanabi and Al-Jahiz.
He did not practice law, however, instead working as editorial secretary of the new daily newspaper al-Nahar, and writing stories and articles about literature, politics, and social issues.
It follows the heroine, Tamima Nassour, a Shia Muslim teenage girl who leaves her village of Mahdiyya in southern Lebanon to enroll in university in Beirut.
She becomes politically engaged while at university, is seduced by a rebellious writer, and falls in love with a Maronite Christian student named Hani Raai.
Meanwhile, her ne'er-do-well brother Jaber Nessour squanders the family's money, tries to prevent Tamima from attending university, and even attempts to murder her.
The author uses Tamima's story to show the challenges and cultural changes faced by Lebanese youth in the aftermath of the war and amid the Israeli raids on the fedayeen.
The characters include the Tourist, who traveled across the world to visit the ruins of Baalbek; the Sculptor; and a man who symbolizes the people of the future.
He retired from the diplomatic service in 1975, choosing to return to his hometown, Bharsaf, where he worked as the director of social and cultural affairs for around six years.