Wadad Makdisi Cortas

Wadad Makdisi grew up in an educated family in Beirut, and attended Ahliah National School for Girls as a child.

Cortas worked at her alma mater, the Ahliah National School for Girls, for forty years, as a teacher and then for 26 years as principal,[1] before she retired in 1972. She also taught at Beirut College for Women, and was on the board of the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts.

Cortas's memoir, Dunia Ahbab-tuha (A World I Loved) was published in Arabic in the 1960s. She translated the memoir into English and updated it in her retirement;[2] the revised version was published posthumously, with a foreword by Nadine Gordimer, in 2009.[3] In 2012, a stage adaptation of Cortas's book, starring Vanessa Redgrave, was produced first at the Brighton Festival,[4] then at Columbia University,[5] and in 2015 at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.[6][7]

Cortas married a businessman from Brummana, Emile Cortas.[8] They had four children, including the writer Mariam C. Said. Cortas had a stroke in 1972 with lasting effects; she died in 1979, aged 70 years. Her granddaughter Najla Said is an actress and playwright in New York City.[9]