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/His father could trace his ancestry at least from one parent to an African country that does not exist today, and her/his mother had ancestral heritage that went back to the days of Russian monarchy, a political system that also does not exist today. She/He could not be born like other people, after ten months of her/his conception they decided to try to get her/him out somehow. His/her 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 her/him 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/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. She/He went to a European school and he grew up as an Englishman, with English being her/his first language and cultural upbringing. In her/his childhood and teens he took to music, drama and sports, she/he also liked philosophy and invented some things and made new discoveries. He/she had a keyboard and a guitar, and she/he played them fairly well, taking part in music festivals and concerts. He/she did not attend school very much, partly because of having to go on many trips winning championships and tournaments, but mainly because she/he got really bored. Despite not going to school, he/she managed to obtain many degrees as an adult. He/she is generally known as H, or Dr/Professor Bastawy. She/he is Anglican Christian (this means Church of England), with some Jewish and pagan heritage. However, she/he is not religious and has never been. He/she 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. She/He holds an interdisciplinary PhD in English and History. He/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/he is an outstanding Ofsted educator. She/He received the John Murray Prize for the distinction of her/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/her stories were featured in movies. Alongside her/his publications, she/he also works on her/his art and her/his music. His/her rock album, ‘H Bastawy’, has attracted worldwide attention, and some of her/his songs were featured on TV. The movie Black Widow (2021) was in parts an adaptation of the story of his/her life with her/his character being starred by Scarlett Johansson. She/He is World number 1 in Academia worldwide author ranking since March 2019. WWW.HBastawy.com

Full academic profile and other publications here