The origins of audio drama in Egypt were associated with the emergence of the radio and the broadcast institute, which was established in 1934. The Egyptian audio drama began to be formed by the writer and storyteller Youssef Ezz El Din Eissa, one of the pioneers in this field. His first work for the radio was the theatrical evening (Wheel of Days) in 1940. Eissa afterwards presented about 400 works for the Egyptian radio.
Eissa was born in 1917, he was interested from a young age in various art disciplines, including story writing, and then entered the world of audio drama writing during the period of the forties. At that time, audio drama works were only composed of one episode, until the series “Enemy of the People” appeared in 1955, which was the first radio series composed of 34 episodes, created by Eissa.
Eissa then already had radio broadcast experience through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), while studying in England for a PhD in Zoology. A selection of his works were broadcasted, such as: (A Letter to God), (The Little Jasmine Tree), and (In a Drop of Water).
Eissa received the Egyptian State Appreciation Prize for Literature for his radio works in 1974. He left our world in 1999, after a lifelong journey that brought together science, literature and creative writing for the radio
In the context of the project Mawgat – Audiodrama, four works by Ezz El Din Eissa have been recorded. You can listen to them on this page.
The Missing Day
Episode from a Radio Show
Duration: 5 minutes
The events of this episode unfold around the story’s heroine “Fatima” as she lies in the hospital due to her injury in a war raid. “Dr. Tawfiq” gets to know her, falls in love with her, and decides to donate his blood to her, but she wakes up after her surgery, not remembering anything about her life, except the horror and dread of war and the sounds of bombs.
Bitter Honey
Episode from a Radio Show
Duration: 15 minutes
(Sawsan) a young girl who lived with her mother in an isolated palace since childhood, and has never mingled with or talked to men, or know anything about them, but (Hisham) the journalist sees her and falls in love with her, and decided to climb the walls of her isolated palace to confess his love to her and try to change the misconceptions that her mother and those around her conveyed to her about the world of men.
In the Drop of Water
Late night show
Duration: 40 minutes
The events of this evening revolve around a witch who lives on a rainbow in the sky and decides one day to descend to the earth to take away the evilness in a man’s heart and replace it with love and the drive to do good by making him live inside a drop of water and contribute to resolving the disputes of residents with it. He then discovers that he has become of importance, but in the end inside a drop of water, and for only three minutes.
Room With No Windows
Late night show
Duration: 40 minutes
The events of this evening revolve around a group of people who meet inside one room which they do not know what it is nor why they are gathered in it. They try in various ways to know where they are, and then discover in the end that this room is a cemetery, and they are living in it now after their death, because the living still remember them and remember their deeds. So this is the first phase in death, and then the second phase of eternal death comes after, once they are forgotten completely by the living, and start to sleep forever one after the other.