Hind Rostom: My Memories

The journalist Ayman El-Hakim was one of the lucky few who knew the “Queen of Seduction” Hind Rostom up close. He heard her bold opinions on art, life and politics, and recorded her enjoyable and astonishing memories faithfully, so that you read them as if you were hearing Hind Rostom’s distinctive voice as she talks about her childhood, the coincidence that led her into the field of art, the circumstances that forced her to retire, her view of seduction as an art, and her assessment of the comparison between her and Marilyn Monroe. You will read tales of the mischief of the “Troublemakers’ troupe”: Omar Sharif, Rushdy Abaza and Ahmed Ramzy, and of other artists and directors she knew, and you will laugh at what went on behind the scenes of the film “Ibn Hamido” with Zeinat Sedki and Ismail Yassin. How does Hind Rostom, who played strong, dominant women, look at men and at married life? How did she live it with her husband, the eminent doctor? And would Hind Rostom accept that her husband be considered “Si El-Sayed”? Besides all this, Ayman El-Hakim adds an important testimony written by Hind Rostom’s only daughter, as Bassant Reda writes about Hind Rostom the mother, confirming once again what an exceptional personality she was, both artistically and humanly. The book also contains photographs from Hind Rostom’s life and films, including very rare personal photographs published here for the first time.