The play, "The Wheel of Days" begins with an old man and his wife reminiscing over the past and watching the sunset. Suddenly then, they notice something very strange happening. The sun stops moving towards the East, and moves back towards the West! They then find that they are moving back in time, that the 'wheel of days' is rolling backwards, so yesterday becomes tomorrow, the past becomes the future and so on. When this happens life changes dramatically. The future is not a secret anymore. The play shows the meaning of life, with people living and knowing what would happen tomorrow, or the next year because they're just moving back into their past. Concepts of life and death change too. People get younger but the younger they get, the closer they are to going back into their mother's wombs, and so they would be leaving this world. Therefore, death is still feared but in a different way. Moreover, meanings of life and death change; those who have died come back to life, so death then, means life because time is moving the other way round. People who keep getting younger are getting closer to death because they are moving to the day on which they were born; with time moving back, that would be their last day on Earth. People crowd around tombs waiting for their beloved ones to wake up! Moving towards the past, the wheel gets stuck every now and then and people are stilled in all different positions for a while, like when a movie is paused on screen! The wheel then moves forward towards the future, pauses again, then continues to move backwards. The play ends with the old man and woman who have appeared at the beginning of the play. They have become almost children playing around a tree and reminiscing the past; when they were old people one day, married with children. They are afraid now because they feel that in a few years they'll part when each goes to the womb of one's mother. The play ends with the boy telling the girl, "Well don't worry, we can try and fool time. We can both slip into one womb when Time is not looking." (Wheel of Days, written for the stage 1936, published and broadcast 1940, published again 2000 in Al Ahram Newspaper, Copyrights Reserved)

Youssef Ezeddin Eassa then started publishing short stories and plays in famous magazines such as 'Rozalyoussef', and 'The Egyptian Radio Magazine' and was continuously asked to write more radio drama. He became a pioneer in this field and 'radio drama' to him became what he called, "The Modern Theatre". Moreover, his poems were selected to be sung by famous singers of the time. His short stories and dramas were characterized by a fertility of imagination together with a broad philosophical insight.

In 1942, he made a drastic decision, which many people believed to have had a negative influence upon his fame in the writing career. He decided to move to the newly founded then, University of Alexandria for no reason other than the fact that he had always been in love with that city by the sea and found it to be incredibly inspiring. "The Nile has two shores" said Eassa, "but the sea has one shore looking onto infinity!" Moving to Alexandria was moving away from the Cairo centralization of media, away from publishing houses and publishers, who, in the third world, always require continuous nagging from writers.

Cairo centralization, yet, back then in 1942 was not so strongly felt like how it had become later in the sixties and onwards. However, this decision to move to Alexandria, has now become a positive point in Eassa's favour, for it confirms that whatever prestige he attained as a writer was due to the quality of his art and the intensity of his talent. Such a talent that broke the third world rules and made its way to the capital without pursuing and nagging. It was the magazines, newspapers and the Cairo Radio that pursued him to Alexandria. However, had he been residing in Cairo, he would have still got much more attention from the media and his published works in book form would have definitely appeared much earlier. More significant even, was that translations of his works would have come out. The appearance of such translations could have made drastic changes, for in the early eighties of the 20th century, a Nobel authority member came to Egypt to select names for the Nobel Nomination in literature. Eassa's name was among three Egyptian names, and it was the absence of translations that stood as a barrier.

In 1948, he traveled to England , Sheffield University to obtain his Ph.D. His stay in Sheffield happened to be the happiest time in his life. It had a strong impact on his personality and amazingly gave him the confidence he needed as a writer and not just as a scientist. Two people were responsible for this confidence: his supervisor Professor Eastham and his Ph.D. examiner Professor Wigglesworth; the eminent scientist, who was considered in the field of Zoology to almost rank Einstein in mathematics.

The subject of his thesis was "Butterflies". On the day of the thesis discussion, Professor Wigglesworth's exact words were: "I have examined hundreds of Ph.D. degrees. Not a single one interested me, impressed me and inspired me like this one has." Furthermore, Prof. Wigglesworth was highly impressed with Eassa's artistic illustrative drawings in the thesis. Eassa's supervisor, Professor Eastham later told him, "Thank you. You are an artist, Youssef, and I believe that a scientist should be an artist." Those words had a most significant impact upon Youssef Ezeddin Eassa, who had always been before somewhat uncomfortable with being acknowledged as a writer. Back at home science and art were looked upon as two opposites and he was made to feel through some colleagues that he had betrayed his scientific career. Personally, he never believed in any contradiction between science and art, and the words of Eastham confirmed this belief.

Writing was always something he could not resist. It was always imposing itself on his life, and so his literary writings went on during his stay in England. He wrote a number of dramas and stories that were broadcast on the BBC, third program, then. He always received a "Thank you" letter from the BBC for his writings.

During his stay in England, Eassa met with some quite interesting and remarkable figures. He visited Bernard Shaw, at his home, once for tea. Eassa remembered Bernard Show as a great and modest man. "Show prepared the tea himself and we had an interesting chat. He told me, "When I was young, I believed that I was greater than Shakespeare. Later, I felt we were almost equal and now, I think that Bernard Show has done nothing at all". Eassa commented on this saying "I learnt then that great men are very modest."

Among other acquaintances was Professor Krebs, (Noble awarded in Biochemistry), who was his favourite companion during coffee breaks at Sheffield University and their favourite topic had always been art and literature. Eassa later wrote in the Egyptian papers various articles about his stay in Sheffield expressing admiration for the place and its people.

In 1960, he was selected by the Fullbright Organization to be a Visiting Professor in the United States for one year ( Berkeley and Illinois Universities ). Among the reasons he was chosen was the fact that he was an eminent writer together with being a professor; something that was intellectually esteemed by the Fullbright Authorities, thus confirming the words of Professor Eastham about art and science.

During his stay in the states he saw Aldous Huksly, and John Kennedy who came to give talks at the University. He also had friendly talks with Joseph Cotten on the boat back to Egypt Eassa was very impressed with his visit to the United States and admired what he called "the creative American touch" , which he mentioned in some articles and television talks.

Back to his country, he escalated in the university posts as an associate professor, a professor, Head of Zoology Department, and after the age of 60 (retirement age), he continued to be a professor, gave his lectures regularly and supervised research until his passing away in September, 1999. The bond between the writer and the Zoology Professor had then become a solid one.

In the fifties of the century, his radio dramas had reached the peak of originality and his fame had become widespread in Egypt and the Middle East . It was the Cairo directors who traveled all the way to Alexandria , asking him on behalf of the Radio Authorities for more radio dramas. During the mid-seventies, his stories, plays and novels were making drastic changes in the form of the Arabic writing, or perhaps writing in general and appearing in eminent papers and in book form. His writings were regarded as tops in literature, and his articles in Al Ahram had begun to take a regular appearance in weekly columns. Although he was living outside the capital it was yet impossible for the media to ignore him, so it was the media that traveled to Alexandria collecting talks for the papers, radio and television. As a scientist, Eassa was a dedicated professor, who researched, supervised research and Ph.Ds, loved his career and enjoyed teaching.

As a lecturer at university, he was adored by his students, who found his lectures to be both rich, creative, extremely entertaining, full of puns and a unique sense of humour. When asked on a television interview about the relation between science and literary art, he said: "there is no contradiction between them. I cannot imagine a real artist or writer to be with no intellect .. or uninspired by the world he is writing about.. Art would be then so flat.. Science makes art much deeper, and art makes science more understandable. I believe that the moment a professor starts to give a lecture, he becomes an artist. It is not only what a professor knows that counts, but it is how he conveys his knowledge to others…"

On being asked about whether he regrets moving to Alexandria he was quoted saying: "Writers are not categorized according to their home address.. what matters is the quality of writing."

Youssef Ezeddin Eassa was a liberal thinker; broadminded and highly philosophical. Astonishingly, he was sometimes attacked for being so. His global outlook was unconventional; writing about people, just as people, without being biased to his own locality and believing that all human beings are " just people on the same boat sharing one destiny." The idea of death remained shocking to him. The fact that all humans are destined to die was something which he saw to be unbelievingly cruel. It seemed to him like a death sentence.

At the age of 85, the cheerful young man who had come to Alexandria one day and looked at its sea with meditative eyes, had not changed much at heart. He had only got more mature and had gray hair on his head. His sense of humour and love for life and humanity, were still the same He was still the man from the east who looked upon the west with a friendly eye. He was still the frightened little boy who wept at the age of three for the dramatic termination of mankind. He still recalled having tea with Bernard Shaw and coffee with Krebs. He was still inspired by life and there was so much that he wanted to write. He passed away peacefully on the 18th of September, 1999, taking along with him a heedful of masterpieces which he had had no time to write, but also leaving behind, a rich legacy of works with which he had hoped might make the world a more peaceful place for mankind.