‘Wasf Masr’ Encyclopedia to be re-printed

CAIRO – 27 June 2018: Haitham el Hag Ali, president of The General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO), revealed that the entity is working to re-print the book "Wasf Masr" (Describing Egypt) in celebration of the Egyptian-French cultural year 2019.

He further stated that nine parts of the book remain missing in the stores of the organization, and the remaining 27 parts were sold years ago.



Ali further stated that once the nine parts are found, the remaining parts of the book will be re-printed to be ready for the public by 2019.

Furthermore, Ali stated that parts of "Wasf Masr" (Description of Egypt) can be found in the Golden Jubilee of Cairo’s Book Exhibition.



The parts ready for re-printing will be printed in the presence of the inheritors of writer Zoheir al Shayeb, who translated 13 parts of the famous book.



It is worth noting that the translation project for "Wasf Masr" started in 2004 and ended by 2009.



"Wasf Masr" Encyclopedia also includes paintings that require decoding. This is one of the causes of the delay of the re-printing process.


FILE - The book Description of Egypt

An original copy of the book was destroyed after the Egyptian Scientific Institute was burned down during riots in 2011.



France's Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Egypt with more than 160 historians, artists and scientists during the French campaign in Egypt between 1798 and 1801. However, French General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, who was in charge of the campaign after Bonaparte left Egypt after only one year, is the one who formed committees to study all aspects of the Egyptian society to document their findings in a book celebrated until today.



The book was collected between 1803 and 1828. It included more than 3,000 paintings depicting various scenes of Egypt and was promoted as a major scientific, literary, historical and artistic work that refuted many old assumptions about Egypt and spared future generations of much work to discover secrets of the ancient country.