Sherif Hatata

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Sherif Hatata (September 13, 1923 – May 22, 2017) was an Egyptian doctor, author and communist activist. He was born in Egypt to an Egyptian father, Fathallah Hetata Pasha, and an English mother. His father was a Western-educated landowner and the family was upper middle class. He grew up in a Nile Delta village and learned little about farming, which his family relied on for income. In his 20s, he was shocked by the poverty of the peasants working his father’s lands and felt he could not be part of feudalism.

After World War II, Hatata joined Iskra, a major Egyptian communist movement. In 1947 Iskra merged into the Democratic Movement for National Liberation (DMNL). He was arrested in 1948 during a crackdown on communists by the monarchy, and released after the 1952 revolution.

After 1952, he joined the Voice of the Peasants as part of its editorial board. When two DMNL comrades escaped detention, they stayed at his home but were tracked and arrested. Hatata and many other communists were released in April 1964 during Nasser’s presidency. He believed Egyptian communists could unite with Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union (ASU). In December 1964, the ASU was reorganized into a 16-member secretariat-general, including six original communists, Hatata among them.

Hatata married Nawal El Saadawi, a prominent writer who supported women’s liberation; they met in 1964 and married that year. They lived in Cairo and had a small house in Hatata’s home village. Their son, Atef Hatata, became a film director. From 2006 until his death, Hatata was married to Egyptian writer and film critic Amal Elgamal. He died in 2017 at age 93.