‘I am English, but with Scottish and African roots as well as roots in the furthest northern parts of Europe.’ Dr H Bastawy

H Bastawy came to existence in Alexandria to parents who were practically foreign to the culture they were living in. His father could trace his ancestry at least from one parent to an African country that does not exist today, and his mother had ancestral heritage that went back to the days of Russian monarchy, a political system that also does not exist today. He could not be born like other people, after ten months of his conception they decided to try to get him out somehow. His mother expected a girl and planned to call him Heidi, or Horace for a boy. Horace or Heidi was not a name that could be pronounced in the environment that they were in, so they named him Haythem which is a variation of that name. He prefers H instead which is a more neutral name – being gender neutral himself – and the initial for all these names across all these languages. He went to a European school and he grew up as an Englishman, with English being his first language. In his childhood and teens he took to music, drama and sports, he also liked philosophy and invented some things and made new discoveries. He had a keyboard and a guitar, and he played them fairly well, taking part in music festivals and concerts. He did not attend school very much, partly because of having to go on many trips winning championships and tournaments, but mainly because he got really bored. Despite not going to school, he managed to obtain many degrees as an adult. He is generally known as H, or Dr/Professor Bastawy. He is Anglican Christian (this means Church of England), with some Jewish and pagan heritage. However he is not religious and has never been. He lives and works from home in Leeds, England.

Dr H Bastawy is a Fellow of the British Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and a former Teaching Fellow in Drama and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Leeds. He holds an interdisciplinary PhD in English and History. He taught English and History at more than ten universities and colleges in the UK and around the world, read and presented papers at many conferences worldwide and he is an outstanding Ofsted educator.  He received the John Murray Prize for the distinction of his research in 2015, the Peter Emmerson 2015 Assessor of the Year Award and the SWAPCA Languages and Literatures Award in the US in February 2017 and has published widely on various aspects of English Literature and History. Some of his stories were featured in movies. Alongside his publications, he also works on his art and his music. His rock album, ‘H Bastawy’, has attracted worldwide attention, and some of his songs were featured on TV. He has been World number 1 in Academia worldwide author ranking for many years.  WWW.HBastawy.com

Full academic profile and other publications here

 

 

This was provided by My Heritage at 66% discount. Apparently my DNA says that I am:

69.7% English

23.3% Swedish

5.9% Scottish and Welsh (African)

1.1% Chinese

 

I am also Celiac, that means I am allergic to gluten.