Renowned Egyptian diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali has donated a collection of thousands of books to the American University in Cairo (AUC), the institution said in a statement on Thursday.
Boutros-Ghali, who served as the sixth secretary-general of the United Nations from 1992 to 1996, and was the first Arab and African to hold the position, has given the university over 13,000 books in several languages.
“The collection provides a mosaic of Boutros-Ghali's diplomatic life, and highlights from the collection are currently on display in an exhibition at the Rare Books and Special Collections Library in AUC’s Main Library,” according to an AUC statement.
As Egyptian minister of state for foreign affairs in 1977 and then again from 1978 to 1979, Boutros-Ghali worked with former president Anwar Al-Sadat on Egypt-Israeli relations and accompanied him on his visit to the Israeli Knesset in 1977 and again to sign the Camp David accords in the United States in 1978.
AUC’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library holds a wide range of books, manuscripts, photographs, maps, and oral history interviews in several languages. According to its website, it covers Egyptology, Islamic Art and Architecture, and travel literature.
