Scholar, writer and politician of Egypt. Dr El-Qalamawi was member of the parliament (1958-64), (1979-84); Professor of Arabic Literature, Cairo University (1956-67); Head of the National Film Organisation (1967); Head of the General Book Organisation; President of the Board of Censorship (1982-85). Dr El-Qalamawi helped shape Egypt's cultural scene both as a scholar and as a feminist. The term 'first' always applied to her from the time she left Cairo's American College for Girls in 1928 to become the first at King Faud University all the way to when she established the Middle East's first international book fair in 1967 - the Cairo book fair. Dr El-Qalamawi completed post-graduate studies in Sorbonne, France. Her thesis in PhD Alf Lillah wa Lillah laid the foundation of her life-long mission to create the new Woman - intelligent, cultured, wise, yet conspicuously feminine, in full charge of her life and family. Dr El-Qalamawi wrote short-story anthology, The Devils' Play, Hykayat Geddety (1935), Limitation in Literature (1955) and The World Between Two Bookcovers (1958). Her translation-cum-interpretation into Arabic of works such as Chinese stories by Pearl Buck (1950) and Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1964) illustrated women's struggle against impossible odds and the need to re-educate men. Her most famous work was her Masters in interpretation of Schehrezade, who won over men by re-education them instead of confronting them. Soheir El-Qamawy was Egyptian of east European - Anatolian origin.