About

‘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. Her father could trace his ancestry at least from one parent to an African country that does not exist today, and her mother had ancestral heritage that went back to the days of Russian monarchy, a political system that also does not exist today. She could not be born like other people, after ten months of her conception they decided to try to get her out somehow. Her mother expected a girl and planned to call her 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 her Haythem which is a variation of that name. The name Hannah, however, became asssociated with him/her after winning a multitude of court cases. The judge of the final hearing saw it fit to compare him/her to Hannah Hampton, the goal keeper, after she/he managed to successfully lead a five-day defence in the absence of a solicitor. With the name bearing significance of course, to one of his/her greatest ancestors Third Earl of Southampton, referred to by Shakespeare as ‘Fair Youth’. A picture of him can be seen underneath the biography. The email was sent from the judge’s office with this confirmation at 11:51 on 13th Auguest 2024, the ninth anniversary of his/her father’s death.

She prefers H instead which is a more neutral name – being gender neutral herself – and the initial for all these names across all these languages. She went to a European school and grew up as an Englishman, with English being her first language and cultural upbringing. In her childhood and teens, she took to music, drama and sports, she also liked philosophy and invented some things and made new discoveries. She had a keyboard and a guitar, and she played them fairly well, taking part in music festivals and concerts. She did not attend school very much, partly because of having to go on many trips winning championships and tournaments, but mainly because she got really bored. Despite not going to school, she managed to obtain many degrees as an adult. She is generally known as H, or Dr/Professor Bastawy. She is Anglican Christian (this means Church of England), with some Jewish and pagan heritage. However, she is not religious and has never been. She lives and works from home in Leeds, England. Her parents died in 2015-2016 respectively. She has no siblings, or other living relatives. And has never been married.

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. Dr H Bastawy holds an interdisciplinary PhD in English and History. She started her academic career as a Lecturer in English in August, 2008. She 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 she is an outstanding Ofsted educator. She received the John Murray Prize for the distinction of her 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 her stories were featured in movies. Alongside her publications, she also works on her art and her music. Her rock album, ‘H Bastawy’, has attracted worldwide attention, and some of her songs were featured on TV. The movie Black Widow (2021) was partly an adaptation of the story of her life with her character being portrayed by Scarlett Johansson. She has been ranked number one worldwide in the academia author ranking since March 2019. She is gender-neutral and Anglican Christian. WWW.HBastawy.com

Full academic profile and other publications here