Born in Alexandria in 1926, Tewfik Saleh developed a highly influential body of political cinema in the Arab world, notably in Struggle of the Heroes (1962), an acerbic critique of backward traditions and the illusions of the underprivileged, and Diary of a Country Prosecutor (1969), a masterly adaptation of the literary work of Tawfiq al-Hakim. The Dupes (1972), adapted from the short story Men in the Sun by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, was one of the first Arab films to tackle the difficult situation of the Palestinians. A talented teacher of filmmaking to young filmmakers, Saleh took the film adaptation of the greatest novels of Arabic literature to an unprecedented level.