May Menassa

May Menassa (‎; 20 July 1939 – 19 January 2019) was a Lebanese journalist, writer, editor-in-chief, critic and translator, best known as the author of Walking in the Dust and I Killed My Mother in Order to Live. She was the first woman to enter the Lebanese television business and joined the only public television network at the time Télé Liban. She wrote a lot of articles and about ten novels.

Early life May Menassa was born 1939 in Beirut, Lebanon, in a Maronite Christian family. She was the younger sister of the Lebanese poet Vénus Khoury-Ghata and cousin of Latifé Moultaka and Zad Moultaka. Her father was strict but cultivated. He used to read books such as Les Misérables by Victor Hugo to his children before they go to sleep. She studied French Literature at university before pursuing a career in journalism. She became a novelist and a journalist. She only married once and had a son, Walid Menassa, before getting a divorce later on. May Menassa started her career in 1959 as a broadcaster, she was the first woman at the time to enter the Lebanese television business. She was the host of the talk show called "Women of Today" (nisa' alyawm / نساء اليوم) that aired on [ Télé Liban].

She graduated with a degree in French Literature but ten years later, in 1969, she shifted to Arabic and she became part of the cultural team for the Lebanese paper An-Nahar, she worked as literature and music critic and was in charge of the cultural articles. She wrote multiple stories that were about music, theater and literature.

In 1986, she left An-Nahar to become the editor-in-chief of a women's magazine distributed in the Arab world called: Jamalouki.

Menassa never thought of giving up and migrating, yet she always fought for the right word to be said. Her vision was that people in her country, Lebanon, should put their hands together, disregarding who their leader is, to build a new improved country.

Career Source: She was also a member of the society for the protection of the environment as well as Auxilia and Sesobel. She also participated in more than ten conferences yearly, talking about journalism and culture and in particular the importance of women in both those occupations. Lebanese culture is the main subject she discussed when participating in foreign conventions.

Awards and nominations She was nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction twice for her novels Walking in the Dust and I Killed My Mother in Order to Live respectively in 2008 and 2019. After her death in 2019, May Menassa received the Lebanese National Order of Merit.

Death and Afterwards May Menassa died at the age of 80, on 19 January 2019. After her death, she was buried next to her mother in North Lebanon, Bsharri. Writing was a big part of her life, her legacy includes the multiple books and articles that she wrote.