Nuʿmān Saʿd al-Dīn ʿĀshūr (1918–87) was a prominent Egyptian playwright, as well as a short story writer, essayist, cultural historian, and journalist. He became the leading figure in a new school of realistic drama with far-reaching influence. He was born on 18 January 1918 in …
Tawfīq Yūsuf ʿAwwād (1911–89) was a Lebanese writer of fiction and a major pioneer in the development of Arabic realistic narrative who also authored works of poetry, drama, criticism, and journalism. Born in 1911 to a middle-class Christian family in northern Lebanon, he began …
Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ʿAbdallāh (1913–70) was a prominent Egyptian romantic novelist of the mid-twentieth century. He was born in a small village in the western Nile Delta and moved to Cairo to study Arabic at university. He graduated in 1935, returned home, and started his car…
Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs (1919–90), a prolific Egyptian writer of novels and short stories and columnist for the newspaper al-Ahrām , was born to an artistic middle-class family. His father, Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Quddūs, abandoned his profession as an engineer for a career as an actor an…
The Apollo Group (1932–4) (Ar. Jamāʿat Apollo) was an important literary movement, which produced the journal Apollo . The precursors of romanticism in modern Arabic culture are numerous, but the most significant among them is Khalīl Muṭrān (1872–1949), who called for individual…
Jūrj Abyaḍ (George Abyad, 1880–1959) was a Lebanese actor and theatre impresario who made his career mainly in Egypt. Born in Lebanon in 1880, he emigrated to Alexandria in 1898 and started his acting career there. Having established himself in Alexandria, he moved to Cairo, whe…