Nadia Hassan Shukry

Lebanese feminist author who pioneered women's education in the Middle East

Nadia Hassan Shukry (1912-1998) was a Lebanese writer and educator who transformed women's access to higher education in the Arab world. Establishing the first girls' vocational school in Beirut in 1938, she later founded the influential Nadia Institute for Women's Studies. Her landmark novel 《The Woman Who Wasn't Ashamed》 (1947) became the first Arabic-language bestseller written by a woman. Shukry's 1950s advocacy led to Lebanon's first co-educational university policy, directly impacting over 50,000 female students.

Her monthly magazine Al-Mar'aa Al-Jadida (The New Woman) distributed across six Arab countries, featuring articles on legal rights and economic independence. Shukry's work prefigured modern gender equality movements through her unique blend of literary activism and institutional reform. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) posthumously awarded her the 2002 Prize for Women's Literacy, recognizing her role in educating 120,000 women through correspondence courses alone.