After a long journey of enriching the cultural scene in Egypt with his translations and chronicles, historian and translator Bachir El-Sebaie passed away on Sunday at the age of 75.

The ministry of culture mourned on Monday the veteran historian, stating that he was one of the literature and translation pillars in the country.

In a statement, the ministry added that El-Sebaie mastered three languages: Russian, English, and French, which helped him convey these languages’ literature into Arabic.

El-Sebaie gained his fame from translating Colonising Egypt, a book written by Timothy Mitchell, and the book series of The Question of Palestine written by historian Henry Laurens.

El-Sebaie was born in the Sharqeya governorate in 1944 and graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University in 1966.

He was awarded by the Soviet Union Culture Centre in 1971, currently known as the Russian Cultural Centre, for his wide knowledge of the Russian language.

According to the state-owned media outlet Ahram Online, at the time of his death, El-Sebaie was working on translating the second volume of Henry Laurens’s Oriental Crises, which was released in Paris in March.