Dalal Khalil Safadi

Dalal Khalil Safadi (1898 – February 4, 1976; ) was a Lebanese writer and translator. Considered a pioneer in the short story genre among Middle Eastern women, she was the first woman to publish a short story collection in Iraq.

Early life and education Dalal Khalil Safadi was born in 1898 in Beirut, Lebanon. She was educated in Bethlehem and at the American University of Beirut's women's college.

Career beginnings in the Middle East Early in her career, Safadi worked as a teacher, including as an Arabic, history, and English instructor in Lebanon, Iraq, and Nazareth. Then, in 1937, the book was published by al-Ra'i Press in Najaf, making her the first woman to publish a short story collection in Iraq. Contemporaneous female authors in Iraq also tend to publish their works using pseudonyms in order to appease family and traditions.

While she is considered a pioneering short story writer in Lebanon and Iraq, the critic 'Umar Muhammad Talib argues that her stories are better categorized as didactic tales rather than fiction, employing "an oratorical language and a resounding tone to preach to her sisters and encourage them to hold to virtue, morals, and religious teachings. The writer tells stories of the wretched fates that are the end of deviant women." There, she studied sociology at Michigan State University, graduating with a master's degree in 1948, after which she researched child welfare in Detroit.

After 15 years in Lansing, she moved to Washington, D.C., in 1950, having accepted a job monitoring and translating international news for the U.S. Department of Defense. In this period she also wrote a popular collection of Lebanese-Syrian recipes, initially with a publisher in Washington, but later republished in Detroit, Beirut, and Sherbrooke.