Hatata was born in Egypt on 13 September 1923[3][2] to an Egyptian father,[4] Fathallah Hetata Pasha,[5] and an English mother.[6] His father was a Western-educated, feudal landowner,[5] and his family was upper middle class.[4] Hatata, who was raised in his home village in the Nile Delta region,[6] was taught little about agriculture, the sector his family relied on for income.[5] In his 20s, Hatata became appalled at the impoverished conditions in which the fellahin that worked his father's lands lived and expressed resentment that he was "the heir of feudalism and one of its sons."[8]