Date of Birth: 
About Yusuf Abu Rayya
- Yusuf Abu Rayya (1955 - 12 January 2009) was an Egyptian author.
- He was born in 1955 in Hihya in the Sharqiya Governorate, and studied journalism at Cairo University.
- His first published book was a collection of short stories in 1985, followed by his first novel in 1989.
- He wrote over a dozen books including novels, children's books and short story collections.
- His best known work is Wedding Night, published in 2002.
- This novel won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal, and an English translation by R Neil Hewison was published by the AUC Press in 2006. Abu Rayya served on the governing board of the Egyptian branch of PEN International.
- He lent vocal support to the Syrian writer Haidar Haidar, who was the subject of a fatwa by clerics at Al-Azhar University in 2000.
- Abu Rayya died of liver cancer in January 2009.
Read more at Wikipedia