In Memory of Jihan Gazawi Aony

A year and more has passed since the death of our woman of letters and the friend of this magazine, Jihan Gazawi Aony. The departed was among us filling ear and eye, nourishing the leading literary magazines with her fine production, and speaking over the Arab broadcasting stations.

The name of Jihan Gazawi Aony may be unknown to many, for in her literary and private life she was nothing other than that modest violet whose fragrance breathes out from behind its shading leaves... But her heroism lies in her having played the part of a valiant soldier fighting on three fronts: she was, God rest her, the ideal wife and mother; the productive teacher, sharing with her husband the burden of livelihood; and the thinking woman of letters, penetrating of sight and insight, who did not bow her proud head to the rule of things as they are, nor fall silent, as others do, before the crookedness and discord of men's codes, their unjust oppressions, and their base, self-seeking pretensions... How quickly she would come forward of her own accord and loose a resounding cry, proclaiming a right or refuting a wrong, with an argument than which none is stronger or more silencing, and with a free, bold pen — among the pens of our earlier and contemporary women writers we have known none more eloquent, none finer in its weave and its border.

Her dear memory was revived over Radio Lebanon by her friend Edvick Jureidini Shayboub, who spoke with the departed's husband, Mr. Tahsin Awni, about certain matters relating to his literary wife and the possibility of collecting her manuscript works and presenting them for printing — above all her book on the woman of letters "Mayy."

The Woman's Voice bows anew to the memory of its dear friend Jihan.