Yaqub Sanu

Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʿ (, , anglicized as James Sanua), also known by his pen name "Abu Naddara" ( Abū Naẓẓāra "the man with glasses"; January 9, 1839 – 1912), was an Egyptian actor, playwright, theatrical producer, journalist, publisher, political cartoonist, and teacher. He was a pioneer of political satire and popular theater in Egypt and authored numerous plays in Egyptian Arabic.

He is credited with coining the phrase "Egypt for the Egyptians" His father worked for Prince Ahmad Yegen, the grandson of Muhammad Ali Pasha, Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. Yaʿqūb Ṣanūʻ grew up and was educated in a multilingual environment, exposed to Italian, Arabic, French, Hebrew, and English. His plays often featured very colloquial Egyptian Arabic and nationalist themes. As they were illiterate, he instructed them to read and write as well as in acting, and they started their career in Sanu's theatrical troupe.

Plays

Būrṣat Miṣr ( 'The Egyptian Stock Market') al-ʿAlīl ( 'The Sickly One') Abū Rīda wa-Kaʿb al-Khayr ( 'Abū Rīda and Kaʿb al-Khayr') aṣ-Ṣadāqa ( 'Faithfulness') al-Amīra al-Iskandarānīya ( 'The Alexandrian Princess') Anisa ʿala Mūḍa ( 'A Fashionable Young Lady') Ghandūr Miṣr ( 'The Egyptian Dandy') ad-Durratīn ( 'The Two Co-Wives') Mūliyīr Miṣr wa-Mā Yuqāsīh ( ' The Egyptian Molière and What He Suffers') al-Qirdāti Lu'ba Tiātriyya Ḥasalat fī Ayyām al-Ghuzz ( 'The Monkey Trainer, a Theatrical Play Set in the Days of the Ghuzz) ('The Unfaithful Husband') Fāṭima as-Salāsil al-Muḥaṭṭama ( 'The Shattered Chains') al-Waṭan wal-Ḥurriyya ( 'The Homeland and Freedom')