Effat Yehia

Independent Egyptian theater director and playwright

Effat Yehia is a playwright and theater director. She founded an independent women's theater company, Al-Qafela (1991-2008), which performed plays about women's issues. Her focus is to express women's issues and portray their needs and their struggle for freedom. She directed many plays such as Desertscape, Memory of Water and Wamda. She also wrote many one act plays that were performed and published. She has been a participant in many theater festivals and events in Egypt and overseas. She won Egypt's award for the best rising director. Her play, Yawmiat Fatma, expressing women's issues and the need to participate in voting, toured all over Egypt in 2002. Yehia suffered from having some plays closed for censorship reasons.