She chronicled her fight against cancer in her novel "Heavier than Radwa," set against the turbulent days of Egypt's revolution. She died yesterday and her funeral was today.
Born in Cairo in 1946, Ashour's writing won multiple awards, including the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature in 2007 and the Owais Prize in 2011. She wrote more than fifteen books, the best-known of which is the "Granada" trilogy, which chronicles the rise and fall of Arab civilization in Spain.
She was politically active her entire life, notably as a founding member of the March 9 movement calling for the independence of Egypt's universities.
"She was involved up to the very last moment. As long as she could walk, she went out to protests," said prominent novelist Ahdaf Soueif, a close friend.
"I write, the space becomes my own, and I am no longer an object acted upon but a subject acting in history," she said in a journal article.
She is survived by her husband, Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti, and her son, poet Tamim Barghouti.