Tributes
What ministers, scholars, writers, critics and journalists said of him, and those who knew him well.
“I say ‘Abdeltawab Youssef’, stripped of titles, because his name alone is loftier than any title. In knowledge he was a university, in literature a school, and as a human being, there is no end to what could be said.”
“Many write for children, but only a few have produced real literature, and Abdeltawab Youssef is at their forefront, in quantity and in quality.”
“The master of children's literature in Arabic par excellence.”
“I believe his distinction was that when Abdeltawab wrote for children, he was addressing adults too.”
“This man gave himself wholeheartedly to the cause of the child's education.”
“The late writer Abdeltawab Youssef lived his whole life with the heart of a child.”
“When we reviewed the efforts made during the International Year of the Child, 1979, it was plain that one devoted man had carried heavy burdens on his shoulders, and that he must be given the Golden Medal of Giving in recognition of what he gave to Egypt's children. In my view, giving him this award expresses a great deal of loyalty to, and esteem for, a faithful son of Egypt: the great writer, thinker and patriot, Abdeltawab Youssef.”
“From his youth, Abdeltawab Youssef took the side of Egypt's children, and in doing so he showed that he had taken the side of Egypt's future.”
“[We would not care to do without] the elegance of Perrault, the refinement of the Grimm Brothers, and, if I may add, the power and vitality of Abdel Tawab Youssef.”
More tributes
“‘My father was a teacher’, and a creator, an inspiration, generous and kind. He lived a full life and left the world quietly.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef deserves this celebration: with the hundreds of works he produced, he is an institution and a library.”
“My father was a creator… at heart a peasant, made from the clay of this good land… generous as its Nile… chivalrous with the chivalry of Egypt's simple men.”
“I see in Abdeltawab Youssef a man whose life was a great journey of struggle, one hard to repeat, in which he fulfilled his mission quietly and to perfection.”
“He was a beautiful father.”
“He was an influential giant and a wonderful intellectual who took up the causes of his country and his nation. He was honest, truthful and upright, with nothing before his eyes but the good of his homeland and his nation.”
“He firmly believed that in writing for children he was fulfilling a noble moral duty and a distinguished humane purpose: caring for the young of the entire Arab nation, whom he saw as half of the present and all of the future.”
“When high positions were offered to him, he turned them down, convinced that a creative writer's role is to serve his society through useful works that raise up its children.”
“Somehow, Youssef has managed to recover for us the quality that is fundamentally our own, as testified, for instance, by the Arabian Nights.”
“With us tonight is a symbol, a model and an example of a great Egyptian creative writer: Abdeltawab Youssef.”
“My respect and love for him kept growing, and so did my longing to see him and to come to know the deep values he held: truthfulness, sincerity, perseverance, humility and patriotism.”
“Anyone who entered his home would know that this man had vowed to give to others from the wealth of his heart, soul and mind, with no thought of gain or reward, or of building a palace or an estate.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef, God rest him, was a cultured man, a true patriot and an eminent writer who carried in his heart and mind the cares and hardships of the Egyptian people.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef is, for us, a unique human phenomenon, from whichever angle we choose to study him.”
“He was astonishing in his memory, his wit, his humility, his warmth, his openness and his long, rich experience. One never tired of his company, nor had enough of his stories and memories.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef always carried a child's soul deep inside him. The smallest things amazed him, and the innocent everyday details of children's lives enchanted him.”
“He was not merely a great and successful children's writer; he was the intellectual who enriched our literary and cultural life for more than sixty years.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef was not just creating; he was struggling.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef took up the child, that marginalised being who most people think is content with little, with any words in any language, and devoted every year of his life to him.”
“Truly, these are the two pillars of all of Abdeltawab Youssef's work: belonging to the homeland, and an enlightened vision of Islam and its values.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef's output reached 25 million copies, which is truly astonishing… this makes him a great pyramid in the history of Egyptian culture.”
“I feel he cannot have died, and never will, because he lives on in every Egyptian child and inside every one of us.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef's deepest sense of belonging was to the child. He spent his life writing for children and about them.”
“Abdel-Tawab Youssef (1928 – 2015) is a readerly writer whose oeuvre is inspired by his rich reservoir as a reader.”
“Abdeltawab Youssef's writings profoundly shaped the sensibility of successive generations.”
“The finest and weightiest testament of the doyen of children's literature.”
“The most renowned writer for children in contemporary Egypt.”
“Youssef is the memorable teacher who leaves his indelible mark long after the years have passed.”
“A man with a big and forgiving heart.”
“His writing was marked by a style both sweet and sober, and by accurate information.”
Written about him
Press articles, interviews, academic studies and books.
- 2025Profile
تعرف على قصص الأنبياء لرائد أدب الطفل عبد التواب يوسف
A feature on the forty or so stories of the prophets that he wrote for children. It recalls the Golden Medal of Giving he received for his work during the International Year of the Child (1979), quoting Dr Mustafa Kamal Helmy's tribute.
- 2025News
تكريم مسيرة عبد التواب يوسف في جناح الطفل بمعرض الكتاب بحضور أبناءه.. وأسئلة الأطفال لا تنتهي
Report on the Children's Wing tribute to his career at the 2025 Cairo International Book Fair, attended by his children Loubna and Essam, with the participation of the National Centre for Children's Culture. It describes the children's many questions about the writer and his stories.
- 2024Study
المكتبة الالكترونية لثقافة الطفل العربي للتنمية المستدامة
A Cairo University team presents a prototype digital library of Arab children's culture built around his works, cataloguing his books in Dublin Core and mapping them to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It finds that his writing addresses all seventeen goals, with quality education as his chief concern. (Vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 15–54; a companion article in English appeared in the Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences.)
- 2023Study
'Decolonizing' the Minds of Children in Africa: Youssef in Egypt and Achebe in Nigeria
A comparative study of Abdeltawab Youssef and Chinua Achebe as children's writers who set out to decolonise young minds. It reads his Unique Encounter series, which brings great Arab scholars face to face with Western scientists, as a project that teaches Arab children to take pride in their heritage.
- 2022News
أبناء عبد التواب يوسف: كان والدنا مختلفا.. واختياره شخصية معرض كتاب الطفل «مفاجأة عظيمة»
Coverage of the seminar ‘Abdeltawab Youssef, the Father Writer’ at the Cairo International Book Fair, with testimonies from his children Loubna and Essam. It also reports on the Abdeltawab Youssef children's competition, which drew 61 entrants from 19 governorates.
- 2022News
مثقفون فى ندوة عبد التواب يوسف: أثر فى أجيال متعاقبة.. وابنته تشكر وزارة الثقافة
Report on the Book Fair seminar ‘Abdeltawab Youssef as Translator and Translated’, moderated by Dr Karma Sami. Speakers stressed that his writing shaped the sensibility of successive generations.
- 2022Profile
كتب عبد التواب يوسف الأقرب إلى قلبي
A post on Hadi Badi, a platform devoted to Arabic children's books, marking his selection as personality of the Children's Book Fair. A children's librarian presents the books of his that she holds dearest.
- 2022Interview
عصام يوسف: والدي هو صاحب فكرة برنامج «العباقرة»
Interview with his son, the novelist Essam Youssef, about family life and his father's literary friends, among them Salah Abdel-Sabour and Anis Mansour. He reveals that his father came up with the idea for the television quiz show Al-Abaqera (The Geniuses).
- 2022Profile
بـ747 كتاب.. كيف أصبح عبدالتواب يوسف صديقًا لأطفال مصر؟
A profile tracing how he became a friend to Egypt's children, from the first children's culture conference he organised in March 1970 to the King Faisal International Prize (1991). It quotes him describing prizes as ‘a pat on the shoulder telling you that you are on the right path’.
- 2022News
جائزة واحتفالية و4 ندوات.. معرض الطفل يحتفي بـ«عبد التواب يوسف»
Announces his selection as personality of the year of the Children's Book Fair at the 53rd Cairo International Book Fair, with the programme of four seminars and the children's competition in his name. It calls the choice the crowning of the career of a writer who was the first to found an association and hold a conference on children's culture.
- 2022Profile
عبد التواب يوسف: 750 كتابًا للأطفال ونهرًا من السعادة
A profile following him from a childhood in which a book cost as much as twenty eggs, through his religious series, the 1970 children's culture conference, his literacy work and his awards. It notes that his novel The Scarecrow (Khayal al-Haql) was printed in three million copies.
- 2022Interview
نجل الروائى عبد التواب يوسف: تكريمه شيء عظيم.. وسيرته الذاتية ستتاح بمعرض الكتاب
His son Essam Youssef speaks about his father's tribute at the Book Fair. He announces that the autobiography My Heart, My Mind and My Pen will be available at the fair and describes the family's care for his vast library of children's books.
- 2022Interview
الروائي عصام يوسف: "علاقة والدي بالقلم كانت بمثابة علاقته بالحياة"
Video clip from the programme Masaa DMC in which his son, the novelist Essam Youssef, talks about his father. He describes Abdeltawab Youssef's bond with the pen as being like his bond with life itself.
- 2022News
الاحتفاء بنجم «كتاب الطفل»
Reports that the fair's cultural committee chose him as personality of the 2022 Children's Book Fair, with an outline of his life and of the translations of his books. It describes his writing as sweet yet sober in style and accurate in its information.
- 2022Profile
عبدالتواب يوسف.. الرجل الذى صاغ وجدان جيل من الأطفال
A long feature on his selection as Children's Book Fair personality at the 53rd Cairo International Book Fair, gathering testimonies including Suhair El-Qalamawy's. His daughter Dr Loubna speaks about his legacy and his autobiography (no. 5076, pp. 46–47).
- 2021News
تعرف على عبد التواب يوسف أول شخصية لمعرض كتاب الطفل
Announces him as the first-ever personality of the Children's Book Fair at the 52nd Cairo International Book Fair. It summarises his life and main works, including the children's magazine Al-Firdaws that he founded in 1969.
- 2018Book
في حب عبد التواب يوسف: دراسات وشهادات مهداة للكاتب عبد التواب يوسف
A bilingual tribute volume edited by his daughter, Dr Loubna Abdeltawab Youssef, with introductions by Cairo University president Gaber Nassar and the dean of the Faculty of Arts, testimonies from his children and some twenty-five writers across Egypt and the Arab world, and the record of the Supreme Council of Culture tribute of January 2016. It includes studies of My Father Was a Teacher, The Scarecrow and his Goha plays, an 85-page bibliography, and an English section with Mohamed Enani's translation of The Life of Muhammad in Twenty Stories and seven essays.
- 2018Study
Abdel-Tawab Youssef: A Personal Note
The translator of The Life of Muhammad in Twenty Stories calls Youssef a ‘major figure’ and the master of children's literature in Arabic par excellence, whose genius lay in using imagination at a turning point in Egypt's history. He traces how Youssef recovered the Arab imaginative tradition of the Arabian Nights and Kalila wa Dimna, and how his style was forged between classical Arabic, journalism and radio.
- 2018Profile
Abdel-Tawab Youssef: Praying with the Rhythm of the Universe
His daughter's foreword to the tribute volume describes his days, structured around the five prayers, with writing at dawn and music at home. It also tells the story of the bibliography project and of the making of the volume itself.
- 2018Study
Egyptian Children's Literature: Ideology & Politics
Argues that children's stories are ideological constructs, comparing ‘The Fisherman and the Demon’ in the Arabian Nights and the Brothers Grimm with Youssef's 1957 Egyptian version. In his telling, the demon released from the bottle of ‘Arab Nationalism’ refuses to be imprisoned again.
- 2018Study
Abdel-Tawab Youssef's Narrative Creed
Presents Youssef as a ‘readerly writer’ whose work draws on his rich reservoir as a reader, and as a ‘classical modernist’. It portrays him as ‘the Grandpa who narrates the (hi)stor(ies) of everything’.
- 2018Study
A Reading of Two Translations of Abdel-Tawab Youssef's Hayat Muhammad Fi 'Ashrine Quessa: A Cultural Perspective
Compares Mohamed Enani's and Anthony Calderbank's English translations of The Life of Muhammad in Twenty Stories. The comparison is made from a cultural, reader-response perspective.
- 2018Study
Bakhtine's Chronotope and Bal's Narratology in Youssef's 'I am a Burāq'
A narratological reading of the tale ‘I am a Burāq’ through Bakhtin's chronotope and Mieke Bal's narratology. It notes that the book won the New Horizons award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair in 2000 and sold more than seven million copies.
- 2018Study
Child Language in Abdel-Tawab Youssef's Children's Arabic Novel Khayaal al-Haql
A linguistic analysis of The Scarecrow, tracing how the novel moves gradually from simple to complex sentences and builds a child's vocabulary through context.
- 2018Study
Subliminal Messages in Abdel-Tawab Youssef's Development of Intellectual and Creative Skills Series
Reads his eight-book non-fiction series ‘How…?’, designed to develop children's intellectual and creative skills. The analysis draws on theories of critical thinking.
- 2018Profile
Abdel-Tawab Youssef: An Inspiration
His grandson's account of the 2010 lecture ‘My Journey in the Field of Children's Literature’ that Youssef gave at the American University in Cairo. It includes creative pieces the students wrote in response.
- 2018Profile
The Spirit of the Place: The Abdel-Tawab Youssef Center for Children's Culture
The ‘Rainbow Team’ describes unpacking and organising Youssef's library and books from 2016 onward. Their aim is a children's-culture research centre in his name.
- 2018Study
The Intersection between Ecocriticism and Children's Literature: The Case of Abdel-Tawab Youssef
Shows how Youssef's fiction takes up pollution, desertification, climate change, radiation and cruelty to animals, while holding children's attention through poetic language rather than preaching. It highlights the reciprocity between child and animal in his work (vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 9–44).
- 2018Study
Uses Christiane Nord's functional model to compare Anthony Calderbank's ‘documentary’ translation, aimed at young children, with Enani's ‘instrumental’ translation in more elevated language for older readers. It analyses the referential, expressive and appellative functions of the source text and its literary ingenuity.
- 2017News
وزير الثقافة: الأديب عبد التواب يوسف عاش حياته بقلب طفل
Report on Cairo University's tribute at the Faculty of Arts on 15 July 2017, attended by Minister of Culture Helmy El-Namnam and university president Gaber Nassar. The minister said the late writer had lived his whole life with the heart of a child.
- 2017News
أمانى بدوى: عبدالتواب يوسف رفض فرص الإبداع بعيدا عن أدب الطفل.. صور
Coverage of the Cairo University tribute, quoting Dr Amani Badawi, director of the Center of Languages and Translation: he could have excelled in any literary genre but chose to remain a writer for children. The report counts 1,015 books and 600 boxes of his publications.
- 2017News
جامعة القاهرة تكرّم الكاتب الراحل عبد التواب يوسف عميد أدب الأطفال
Announcement of Cairo University's tribute to him in Hall 13 of the Faculty of Arts on 15 July 2017. It presents him as ‘the dean of children's literature’ and lists the speakers.
- 2017Study
Sheikh Youssef's Biography as Epic: Writing, Teaching, and Singing Resistance
Reads My Father Was a Teacher as an epic of anti-colonial resistance, focusing on Sheikh Youssef encouraging his pupils to sing after Saad Zaghloul's arrest and reviving the orphanage band. It also considers biography as an art form.
- 2016Study
جماليات الإبداع والتخييل في أدب الطفل: عبد التواب يوسف نموذجًا
A peer-reviewed study of creativity and imagination in children's literature, with a theoretical part on the aesthetics of imagination and communication theory and an applied reading of Youssef's stories and novels. It shows how his work feeds the child's hunger for knowledge and develops the imagination (no. 19, pp. 73–84).
- 2015Obituary
عن يوسف والغيطاني (1): رحيلان مبكران مهما تأخرا!
A joint elegy for Abdeltawab Youssef and the novelist Gamal El-Ghitani, who died in the same month. The writer argues that both championed the culturally marginalized, and that Youssef devoted his life to the child, ‘who most people think is content with little’.
- 2015Obituary
A memorial column that draws a parallel between Sheikh Youssef's funeral as his son described it in My Father Was a Teacher and the condolence gathering for Abdeltawab Youssef, where a copy of that book was placed at the front. It reviews his radio career and his thousand or so books, calling My Father Was a Teacher ‘the finest and weightiest testament of the doyen of children's literature’.
- 2015Obituary
As if all this isn't enough — Obituary: Abdel-Tawwab Youssef (1928 – 2015)
Al-Ahram Weekly's obituary of Abdeltawab Youssef, noting that he left more than 950 books, 40 of them for adults. It reprints Youssef Rakha's 2002 profile of him.
- 2015Obituary
الموت يغيّب كاتب الأطفال عبدالتواب يوسف
Reuters report of his death in Cairo, confirmed by his son, the writer Essam Youssef. It notes that he wrote more than a thousand books, with some 25 million copies distributed.
- 2015Obituary
Leading Egyptian cultural figure Abdel Tawab Youssef dies
English-language obituary calling him a ‘leading Egyptian cultural figure’. It reviews his posts at the Ministry of Education, including supervising school radio programmes, his move to full-time writing in 1975, and awards including the State Incentive Award (1975) and the State Award for Children's Culture (1981).
- 2015Obituary
وداعا.. الكاتب الكبير عبد التواب يوسف.. رائد أدب الأطفال
A farewell report from Egyptian state media dating his first radio work to 19 December 1950, on Baba Sharo's programme, and counting 951 works. It notes that he declined the title of ‘pioneer’, crediting Kamel Kilani instead, and that he received the Gold Medal of the Arab States Broadcasting Union.
- 2015Profile
عبد التواب يوسف.. ورحل كاتب الأطفال الأول في مصر (بروفايل)
A profile published the day after his death, tracing his childhood in the village of Shenra and his schooling in Beni Suef. It mentions his library of some 45,000 books and his description of himself as ‘more a reader than a writer’.
- 2015News
وفاة رائد أدب الأطفال الكاتب عبد التواب يوسف
News of his death on Monday 28 September 2015, reported by the Middle East News Agency. It notes that the funeral prayers were held that evening at Al-Hosary Mosque in 6th of October City.
- 2015Study
A Curriculum of Contradictions: State-Sponsored Children's Literature in Egypt (1954 – 2011)
A study of state-sponsored children's literature in Egypt from 1954 to 2011 and its ties to curricula and politics. It discusses Abdeltawab Youssef's place and role, drawing on the author's own interview with him.
- 2012Interview
حوار مع الأديب عبد التواب يوسف
An interview by Mahmoud Al-Dib, published in May 2012, on his philosophy of writing for children. He says children's literature ‘lies at the heart of the whole system of upbringing’, that writing for children is ‘extremely difficult’, and that ‘we are raising them for a time other than our own’.
- 2009Book
أدب الأطفال عند عبد التواب يوسف: دراسة بيوجرافية ببليوجرافية ببليومترية
A book-length study combining his biography with a bibliography of his works and a bibliometric analysis of his output. It is one of the fullest attempts to catalogue his books, which number more than a thousand titles.
- 2002Interview
Abdel-Tawwab Youssef: An older child
A long interview-profile at his home: his routine of writing from four until nine in the morning ‘like any fallah’, his start in radio with ‘Baba Sharo’, founding the Children's Culture Association, and his village childhood in Shenra. He sums it up: ‘The child in me has never died.’
- 1994Study
حول أعمال عبد التواب يوسف للأطفال
An article by the critic Nabila Ibrahim on his works for children, grouped under Qur'anic stories, the Prophet's biography, Islamic values and children's books. It appeared in issue 75 of Al-Qissa (pp. 17–21).
- 1994Study
عبد التواب يوسف وقصته: صديقي الحقيقي
A critical reading by the novelist Naguib al-Kilani of the story ‘My True Friend’, in which a king advises his son Saeed on choosing a true friend. It appeared in issue 75 of Al-Qissa (pp. 105–111).
- 1987Book
دراسات في أدب الطفولة: عبد التواب يوسف وأدب الطفل العربي
One of the earliest book-length studies of Abdeltawab Youssef's work, published in his lifetime by the Egyptian General Book Organization.
- Study
My Father: An Egyptian Teacher (review)
A review of the English translation of My Father Was a Teacher (translated by Loubna Youssef, edited by Mohamed Enani), his portrait of his father Sheikh Youssef. It opens with the doctor who returns his fee to his old teacher and calls Youssef ‘the memorable teacher who leaves his indelible mark’.