Administrator at the British Council in Cairo. Hassan Khalifa was a scholar with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Egypt. He started his career as librarian in British Council in Cairo in mid-1960. He set up, in 1977, his own Cairo Trade Centre, dealing with publishing, bookshop and the promotion of British books. He also started working on a programme of translating and publishing African literature for Arab readers. Hassan Khalifa was born in Alexandria and came from a family with deep roots in Egypt's ancien regime. He was awarded the OBE in 1979 by the British government.