Rehab Bassam

Rehab Bassam (Arabic: رحاب بسام), is an Egyptian blogger who rose to fame in 2008 when Dar al Shorouk, one of the most prominent Egyptian publishing houses, published a collection of her blog posts in book form. She is an active blogger since November 2004.

A graduate of Faculty of Arts (Kolleyyat al Aadaab) with a major in English,^[1] Rehab started to blog back in 2004, taking it "as a challenge", in her own words, when a friend of hers teased her online for not having a blog. Having a look at his, she realized that a blog is where an individual writes about his or her daily routine, and she said to herself "It's no big deal, I too can do that". That very day she created a blog.^[2]

As an Anglophone, Bassam's early posts were in English, but simultaneously and "overnight", she found herself writing in Arabic by September 2004.^[2]

Bassam had a career in market research, copywriting,^{[citation needed]} editing,^{[citation needed]} and translation and publishing of children books.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]}

In 2004, Bassam came into the Egyptian blogosphere, a then nascent community, through her blog Hawadeet (Egyptian colloquialism for "tales"), writing under the nickname Hadouta (Egyptian colloquialism for "a tale"), which soon gained a growing popularity. Her blog writing, stories as well as diary, is described by local reviewers as "gripping, funny, full of echoes from a wide range of influences",^[10] "spontaneous", exhibiting "high literary powers",^[2] written "in a fine style",^[1] "well-written", "expressive",^[9] and "marvelous".^[11]

• Rehab Bassam, Orz bel Laban le Shakhsain (2008), ISBN 978-977-09-2304-7

• Hawadeet Rehab Bassam's blog
• Yallabina "Pink-clad Writer-Blogger Shares her Recipe" A book discussion listing
• Masrawy "Three Egyptian Blogs are Bestsellers in CIBF"
• Daily Star Egypt "Female bloggers invade Egypt’s literary scene"
• Boss wu Toll "Blog Girls Sign their Books"
• "Rice Pudding for Two", Al Ahram Ahmad Bahgat's column
• The book profile page on the publisher's website
• Global Voices Online, From Blogs to Books
• YouTube An interview with Rehab Bassam and fellow bloggers on Dream TV Channel's Al 'Ashera Masa'an (Ten PM) program, 1 of 3
• YouTube An interview with Rehab Bassam and fellow bloggers on Dream TV Channel's Al 'Ashera Masa'an (Ten PM) program, 2 of 3
• YouTube An interview with Rehab Bassam and fellow bloggers on Dream TV Channel's Al 'Ashera Masa'an (Ten PM) program, 3 of 3
• Short biography from the Berlin International Literature Festival