{{Short description|Syrian writer and ophthalmologist}} {{Infobox writer | name = Hayfa Baytar | image = | caption = | birth_name = Hayfa Basil al-Baytar | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1960}} | birth_place = Latakia, Second Syrian Republic | nationality = Syrian | occupation = {{flatlist}} * novelist * short story writer * journalist * ophthalmologist {{endflatlist}} | education = University of Latakia, Damascus University | years active = 1992 | genre = {{flatlist}} * Novel * short story * essays and articles {{endflatlist}} | movement = Realism, Feminism | notableworks = ''The Fallen'' (2000)<br />''The Whore'' (2003)<br />''A Woman of this Modern Age'' (2004) | signature = | native_name = هيفاء باسيل البيطار | native_name_lang = ar }}
'''Hayfa Basil al-Baytar''' ({{langx|ar|هيفاء باسيل البيطار}}, {{ALA-LC|ar|Hayfāʼ Bāsil al-Bayṭār}}; also transliterated :''Haifa Bitar''; born 1960) is a Syrian novelist, short story writer and ophthalmologist. She has won the Abi Al Qassem Al Shabbi prize for her collections ''The Fallen'' (2000) and ''The Whore'' (2003).
== Biography and career ==
=== Early years === Hayfa Basil al-Baytar was born in 1960 Latakia under Second Syrian Republic, and raised there, the principal port city of Syria.<ref name="WWB profile">{{cite web |title=Haifa' Bitar |url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/haifa-bitar |website=Words Without Borders |access-date=21 April 2022}}</ref> She finished her primary, middle and high school studies at her hometown, then studied at the Faculty of Medicine at University of Latakia, and graduated in 1982. She continued her postgraduate studies at Al-Mowasat Hospital of Damascus University, where she specialized in ophthalmology, and graduated in 1986. After graduating in Damascus, she returned to her hometown to work as an ophthalmologist in Lattakia Governmental Hospital and her private clinic for many years.<ref name="esyria">{{cite web |last1=Al-Munjid |first1=Salah al-Din |title=هيفاء بيطار |url=http://esyria.sy/ecal/content/هيفاء-بيطار |website=eSyria |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120126223215/http://esyria.sy/ecal/content/هيفاء-بيطار |archive-date=26 January 2012 |language=ar |date=26 January 2012}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Haifa BITAR {{!}} The International Writing Program |url=https://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/haifa-bitar |access-date=2022-04-29 |website=iwp.uiowa.edu}}</ref>
After that, she traveled for a year to Paris to study, and also prepared many studies on the causes of blindness and other diseases in her field of specialization.<ref name="aljarmaqcenter">{{cite web |title=حوار مع هيفاء بيطار: في معنى الشعور بالانتماء |url=https://www.aljarmaqcenter.com/حوار-مع-هيفاء-بيطار-في-معنى-الشعور-بالا/ |website=aljarmaqcenter |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719164337/https://www.aljarmaqcenter.com/حوار-مع-هيفاء-بيطار-في-معنى-الشعور-بالا/ |archive-date=19 July 2022 |language=ar}}</ref> She also attended courtesy of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State.<ref>{{cite web |title=Haifa Bitar |url=https://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/haifa-bitar |website=The International Writing Program - The University of Iowa |access-date=19 July 2022}}</ref>
=== Literary career === Her literary career began in the early 1990s, and she has become known as a feminist writer as well as a realist.<ref name="Ashur">{{cite book |last1=Ashur |first1=Radwa |title=Dhākirah lil-mustaqbal: mawsūʻat al-kātibah al-ʻArabīyah|script-title=ar:ذاكرة للمستقبل: موسوعة الكاتبة العربية، 1873-1999 |trans-title=Dhākirah lil-mustaqbal: Encyclopedia of Arab women writers, 1873-1999|volume=1|date=2004 |publisher=Majlis al-Aʻlá lil-Thaqāfah |location=Cairo, Egypt |page=305 |edition=first |language=Ar}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Al-Faisal |first1=Samar Ruhi |title=Muʻjam al-Qāsāt wal-Riwāʻyiāt al-ʻArabiyāt|script-title=ar:معجم القاصات والروائيات العربيات |trans-title=Dictionary of Arab women storytellers and novelists |date=1996 |publisher=Jarrus Press |location=Tripoli, Lebanon |page=138 |edition=first |language=ar}}</ref> Her works are also categorized under Arabic and Syrian Feminist and Psychological fiction.<ref>{{cite web |title="هيفاء بيطار" .. ترصد المجتمع ومشاكله في كتابة نسوية عميقة |url=https://kitabat.com/cultural/هيفاء-بيطار-ترصد-المجتمع-ومشاكله-في-ك/ |website=Kitabat |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719142814/https://kitabat.com/cultural/هيفاء-بيطار-ترصد-المجتمع-ومشاكله-في-ك/ |archive-date=19 July 2022 |language=ar |date=23 June 2017}}</ref>
Her first literary work, titled ''Wurūd lan tamūt,'' is a collection of stories, published in 1992, and she published another collection titled ''Qiṣaṣ muhāǧirah'' in 1993. Her first novel ''Yawmiyat miṭalaqah'' was published in 1994.<ref name="aljarmaqcenter" /><ref name="esyria" /> She entered journalism, and wrote social, literary and critical essays published in a number of Syrian and Arab newspapers, magazines, websites and periodicals such as Al-Thawra and As-Safir. Because of her criticism of corruption, she faced problems including censorship of her works in her country.<ref>{{cite web |title=صفحة من معاناة المثقفين في "سورية الأسد" – هيفاء بيطار |url=http://www.alraafed.com/2018/03/21/٦-89/ |website=Alraafed |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719154032/http://www.alraafed.com/2018/03/21/٦-89/ |archive-date=19 July 2022 |date=21 March 2018}}</ref> She participated in the first and second conferences, which were held in 2001 and 2002 at Georgetown University in Washington D.C, lectured about the form of women in contemporary Arab literature.<ref name="esyria" /> She joined the Arab Writers Union in 1994 and was honored by the union officials during The Damascus Spring.<ref>{{cite web |title=البيطار.. النصوص التي تشد القارئ حتى النهاية |url=https://www.esyria.sy/2008/05/البيطار-النصوص-التي-تشد-القارئ-حتى-النهاية |website=esyria.sy |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719145808/https://www.esyria.sy/2008/05/البيطار-النصوص-التي-تشد-القارئ-حتى-النهاية |archive-date=19 July 2022 |language=ar |date=30 May 2008}}</ref>
She is known for her social reality style. A ''Jouhina Magazine'' journalist described her as a humanist and realist who presents socially-reflected reality in all its aspects, writing, "Her work in medicine has helped her to live with many human cases, and present them in a distinguished manner and literary sense."<ref>{{cite web |title=الأديبة هيفاء بيطار: الكتابة هي فعل الحياة الأكثر كثافة |url=https://magazine.jouhina.com/archive_article.php?id=559 |website=Jouhina |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719135852/https://magazine.jouhina.com/archive_article.php?id=559 |archive-date=19 July 2022 |language=ar |date=2 April 2009}}</ref> She is considered to be "a writer who enjoys a style dominated by the spirit of rebellion and daring in her weaving of stories from our contemporary reality." She stated in July 2021 that she likes "to present my truth or my soul honestly to my readers and to the whole world".<ref>{{cite web |title=هيفاء بيطار: لا حرية في سورية على الإطلاق خاصّة في مجال الكتابة والإبداع |url=https://www.harmoon.org/dialogues/هيفاء-بيطار-لا-حرية-في-سورية-على-الإطلا/ |website=Harmoon |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719140602/https://www.harmoon.org/dialogues/هيفاء-بيطار-لا-حرية-في-سورية-على-الإطلا/ |archive-date=19 July 2022 |language=ar |date=8 July 2021}}</ref>
At the beginning of the third decade of her literary career, she expressed she was influenced by Dostoevsky, who "I consider him not only the greatest novelist, but the founder of psychology, because he is more important than Freud in my opinion." and loves the writings of "Balzac, Kundera, Henry Miller, Mario Llosa, and others, and among the Arab writers, I love the writings of Tahar Ben Jelloun, Amin Maalouf, Sonallah Ibrahim, Jamal Naji, Abdullah Bin Bakheet and others."<ref>{{cite web |title="بيطار" من "يوميات مطلقة" إلى "امرأة من طابقين" |url=https://www.esyria.sy/2011/11/بيطار-من-يوميات-مطلقة-إلى-امرأة-من-طابقين |website=esyria |access-date=19 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220719150806/https://www.esyria.sy/2011/11/بيطار-من-يوميات-مطلقة-إلى-امرأة-من-طابقين|archive-date=19 July 2022|language=ar |date=15 November 2011}}</ref>
She has been described as an "outspoken" novelist in ''The New Yorker''<ref name="Habib 2009">{{cite magazine |last1=Habib |first1=Shahnaz |title=The Gulf |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-gulf |access-date=21 April 2022 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=February 17, 2009}}</ref> and has participated in public discussion forums about a variety of topics.<ref name="Al Lawati 2009">{{cite news |last1=Al Lawati |first1=Abbas |title=Internet globalises Arabic literature |url=https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/arts-culture/internet-globalises-arabic-literature-1.53696 |access-date=21 April 2022 |work=Gulf News |date=February 27, 2009}}</ref>
===Critical reception=== According to Abir Hamdar, writing in ''The Female Suffering Body: Illness and Disability in Modern Arabic Literature'' (2014), her work "repeatedly seeks to offer an insight into the gritty reality of women's lives in the Arab world", and her novels and short stories "focus on tragic female characters who suffer social and psychological injury either at the hands of men or because of their own misplaced ideals and aspirations."<ref name="Hamdar 2014">{{cite book |last1=Hamdar |first1=Abir |title=The Female Suffering Body: Illness and Disability in Modern Arabic Literature |date=2014 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |isbn=9780815652908 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gefqBQAAQBAJ |access-date=29 April 2022|pages=113–120}}</ref>{{RP|113}} Her 2004 novel ''Imraʾa min Hadtha al-ʿAsr'' features the protagonist Maryam and her experience with breast cancer, with her unsuccessful relationships with men in the background, and became the subject of wide criticism for its inclusion of taboo subjects, including female sexuality.<ref name="Hamdar 2014"/>{{RP|114}}
Her novel ''A Woman of Fifty'' has a middle-aged protagonist who engages a lover, whom according to Samira Aghacy, writing in ''Ageing in the Modern Arabic Novel'', "despises older women" and has an attitude that "reveals the 'double standard of ageing' since society is permissive of sexual activity in older men, but more severe and fanatical when it comes to the older women's sexuality."<ref name="Aghacy 2020">{{cite book |last1=Aghacy |first1=Samira |title=Ageing in the Modern Arabic Novel |date=2020 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=9781474466783 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C6UxEAAAQBAJ |access-date=29 April 2022}}</ref>{{RP|75}} Her 2002 short story ''The Din of the Body'' (''Dhajeej al-Jasad'') focuses on Indou, a Sri Lankan maid subject to a variety of abuses by her female employer.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Ray Jureidini |editor1-last=Gagnon |editor1-first=John |editor2-last=Khalaf |editor2-first=Samir |title=Sexuality in the Arab World |date=2014 |publisher=Saqi |isbn=9780863564871 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MUYhBQAAQBAJ |access-date=29 April 2022 |chapter=Sexuality and the Servant: An Exploration of Arab Images of the Sexuality of Domestic Maids Living In the Household}}</ref>
According to Lovisa Berg, writing in ''Masculinity and Syrian Fiction: Gender, Society and the Female Gaze'', Bitar is one of several writers of her era who "create male characters who perform masculinities perceived by the other characters as one, or a mixture of, the following: weak, oppressive, traditionalist (meant in a negative way), aggressive, feminized, misogynistic or idealistic."<ref name="Berg 2021">{{cite book |last1=Berg |first1=Lovisa |title=Masculinity and Syrian Fiction Gender, Society and the Female Gaze |date=2021 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9780755637638 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AMZKEAAAQBAJ |access-date=29 April 2022}}</ref>{{RP|78}} Her novel ''One-Winged Eagle'' has a male protagonist, a doctor named Karim with financial difficulties despite his profession, which according to Berg, "contrasts the pressure Karim puts on himself with the demands his sister places on men in general to provide for her."<ref name="Berg 2021"/>{{RP|96}} In her novel ''The Abbaseen Basement'' (1995), the protagonist is the daughter Khulud, who "decides to take revenge on all men because of what her father has done to her mother."<ref name="Berg 2021"/>{{RP|79, 81, 85}} Her novel ''Small Joys - Final Joys'' (1998) follows the protagonist Hiyam as she lives with a Syrian man in Paris while they both attend graduate school, and after they are married, with a focus on the changing moral views of her husband over time.<ref name="Berg 2021"/>{{RP|79, 87}}
==Honors and awards== * Abi Al Qassem Al Shabbi prize in Tunisia for her collection ''The Fallen'' (2000)<ref>{{cite news |date=2021 |title=9 Short Stories by Syrian Women, in Translation. |work=ArabLit |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673082419/AONE?u=wikipedia&sid=ebsco&xid=14ea71fa |access-date=27 April 2022 |via=Gale}}</ref> * Abi Al Qassem Al Shabbi prize in Tunisia for her collection ''The Whore'' (2003)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Haifa BITAR {{!}} The International Writing Program |url=https://iwp.uiowa.edu/writers/haifa-bitar |access-date=2022-04-19 |website=iwp.uiowa.edu}}</ref><ref name=":3" /><ref name="esyria" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Haifa Bitar |url=https://www.etccmena.com/haifa-bitar/ |website=etccmena |access-date=19 July 2022}}</ref>
== Bibliography == An Abjjad list of her works:<ref>{{cite web |title=هيفاء بيطار |url=https://www.abjjad.com/author/6805677/هيفاء-بيطار |website=Abjad |access-date=19 July 2022}}</ref>
=== Short stories === * {{Langx|ar|ورود لن تموت|lit=|translit=Wurūd lan tamūt}}, 1992 * {{Langx|ar|قصص مهاجرة |lit=|translit=Qiṣaṣ muhāǧirah}}, 1993 * {{Langx|ar|ضجيج الجسد|lit=The Din of the Body|translit=Ḍajīj al-jasad}}, 1993 & 2006, {{ISBN|9786144210260}} * {{Langx|ar|غروب وكتابة|lit=Dusk and Writing|translit=Ghurūb wa-Kitābah}}, 1994, {{ISBN|9786144210277}}, {{ISBN|9789953879161}} * {{Langx|ar|خواطر في مقهى رصيف|lit=|translit=Khawāṭir fī maqhá raṣīf}}, 1995 * {{Langx|ar|فضاء كالقفص|lit=|translit=Faḍāʼ ka-al-qafaṣ}}, 1995, {{ISBN|9781855164598}} * {{Langx|ar|كومبارس|lit=|translit=Kūmbārs}}, 1996 & 2007, {{ISBN|1855167182}} * {{Langx|ar|ظل أسود حي|lit=|translit=Ẓill aswad ḥayy}}, 1997 * {{Langx|ar|موت البجعة|lit=|translit=Mawt al-bajʻah}}, 1997 * {{Langx|ar|الساقطة|lit=The Fallen|translit=al-Sāqiṭah}} also translated as "The Whore", 2000, {{ISBN|9786144214886}}, {{ISBN|9789953879437}} <ref name=":0"/> * {{Langx|ar|عطر الحب|lit=|translit=ʻIṭr al-ḥubb}}, 2002, translated as ''Love Struck'' by Hannah Benninger, 2014 <ref name=":3">{{cite news |last1=Bitar |first1=Haifa |title=Love Struck |url=https://www.guernicamag.com/love-struck/ |access-date=21 April 2022 |work=Guernica |date=April 1, 2014 |quote=translated from the Arabic by Hannah Benninger}}</ref> * {{Langx|ar|يكفي أن يحبك قلب واحد لتعيش|lit=|translit=Yakfī an yuḥibbuk qalb wāḥid li-ta‘īsh}}, 2008 * {{Langx|ar|مهزومة بصداقتك|lit=Defeated by your friendship|translit=Mahzūmah bi-ṣadāqatik}}, 2008 * {{Langx|ar|مطر جاف|lit=Dry Rain|translit=Maṭar jāff }}, 2008, {{ISBN|9786144214725}}, {{ISBN|9789953873978}} * {{Langx|ar|صندوق الضمير الأزرق|lit=|translit=Ṣundūq al-ḍamīr al-azraq}}, 2009, {{ISBN|9786144214725}} * {{Langx|ar|S.M.S.}}, 2010, {{ISBN|9781855166585}} * {{Langx|ar|طفل التفاح|lit=|translit=Ṭifl al-tuffāḥ}}, 2016, {{ISBN|9786140227408}}, {{ISBN|9786140118515}}
=== Novels === * {{Langx|ar|يوميات مطلقة|lit=Diaries of a Divorcee|translit=Yawmiyat miṭalaqah}}, 1994, {{ISBN|9786144210307}} <ref>The Arabic Classroom: Context, Text and Learners. (2019). United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p117</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=مصرية (Adel) |first=إيمان عادل-صحافية (Eman) |date=2020-07-05 |title=When I Booked a Seat in the Divorced Women's Club {{!}} Daraj |url=https://daraj.com/en/50457/ |access-date=2022-04-29 |website=daraj.com |language=en-US}}</ref> * {{Langx|ar|قبو العباسيين|lit=|translit=Qabw al-ʻAbbāsīyīn}}, 1995, {{ISBN|9786144210284}}, {{ISBN|9789953872971}} * {{Langx|ar| أفراح صغيرة، أفراح أخيرة|lit=Small Celebrations . . . Last Celebrations|translit=Afrāḥ ṣaghīrah, afrāḥ akhīrah}}, 1996, {{ISBN|9789953872780}} * {{Langx|ar|نسر بجناح وحيد|lit=One Winged Eagle|translit=Nisr bi-janāḥ waḥīd}}, 1998, {{ISBN|9789953879291}} * {{Langx|ar|امرأة من طابقين|lit=|translit=}}, 1999, {{ISBN|9786144210253}}, {{ISBN|9789953296883}} * {{Langx|ar|أيقونة بلا وجه |lit=|translit=Ayqūnah bi-lā wajh}}, 2000, {{ISBN|9786144258101}} * {{Langx|ar|امرأة من هذا العصر|lit=A Woman of this Modern Age|translit=Imraʾa min Hadtha al-ʿAsr}}, 2006, {{ISBN|1855166259}} <ref>{{Cite web |title=Banipal (UK) Magazine of Modern Arab Literature - Book Reviews - A Woman of This Modern Age |url=https://www.banipal.co.uk/book_reviews/review.cfm?review_id=3 |access-date=2022-04-19 |work=Banipal}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Aghacy |first1=Samira |title=Reviews: The Female Suffering Body: Illness and Disability in Modern Arabic Literature |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |date=May 2016 |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=390–392 |doi=10.1017/S0020743816000167|s2cid=163700471 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hamdar |first1=Abir |title=Between Representation and Reality: Disabled Bodies in Arabic Literature |journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies |date=Feb 2019 |volume=51 |issue=1|pages=127–130 |doi=10.1017/S0020743818001186|s2cid=165520367 |url=http://dro.dur.ac.uk/26971/1/26971.pdf }}</ref> * {{Langx|ar|أبواب مواربة|lit=|translit=Abwāb muwāribah}}, 2002, {{ISBN|9786144210239}}, {{ISBN|9789953870175}} * {{Langx|ar|هوى|lit=|translit=Hawá}}, 2007, {{ISBN|9786144210291}} * {{Langx|ar|نساء بأقفال|lit=|translit=}}, 2007, {{ISBN|9786144214763}}, {{ISBN|9789953874852}} * {{Langx|ar|أحلام نازفة|lit=|translit=}}, 2009, {{ISBN| 9786144214879}} * {{Langx|ar|وجوه من سوريا|lit=|translit=Wujūh min Sūriyā}}, 2013, {{ISBN|9786144257326}} * {{Langx|ar|امرأة في الخمسين|lit=A Woman of Fifty|translit=Imraʼah fī al-khamsīn }}, 2013, {{ISBN|9786144258057}} {{ISBN|9786144257098}} * {{Langx|ar|الشحاذة|lit=|translit=al-Shaḥḥādhah }}, 2018, {{ISBN|9789178378814}}
=== Non-fiction === * {{Langx|ar|نسائم الأفكار ؛ نصوص ومقالات|lit=|translit=}}, 2010, {{ISBN|9789933431112}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == * 2014 Opinion Piece in The New Arab [https://english.alaraby.co.uk/opinion/syrias-pampered-coast ''Syria's pampered coast''] * 2021 writing [https://syrianstories.net/f/a-family-of-martyrs-by-haifa-bitar ''A Family of Martyrs'']{{Dead link|date=August 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
{{Authority control|state=expanded}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baytar, Hayfa}} Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century Syrian women writers Category:21st-century Syrian writers Category:Syrian novelists Category:Syrian women novelists Category:Syrian ophthalmologists Category:People from Latakia Category:Latakia University alumni Category:Damascus University alumni Category:Feminist writers Category:Syrian women short story writers Category:Syrian short story writers Category:Syrian essayists Category:Psychological fiction writers