Abd al-Masih Haddad

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Abd al-Masih Haddad
Four members of the Pen League in 1920. Left to right: Nasib Arida, Kahlil Gibran, Haddad, and Mikha'il Na'ima
Four members of the Pen League in 1920. Left to right: Nasib Arida, Kahlil Gibran, Haddad, and Mikha'il Na'ima
Native name
عبد المسيح حداد
Born1890
Homs, Ottoman Syria
Died January 17, 1963(1963-01-17) (aged 72–73)
New York City, United States
OccupationWriter, journalist
ChildrenJerrier A. Haddad
RelativesNadra Haddad (brother)

Abd al-Masih Haddad (Arabic: عبد المسيح حداد, ALA-LC: ʻAbd al-Masīḥ Ḥaddād; 1890–1963) was a Syrian writer of the Mahjar movement and journalist.[1] His magazine As-Sayeh (The Traveler), started in 1912 and continued until 1957, presented the works of prominent Mahjari literary figures in the United States and became the "spokesman" of the Pen League[2] which he co-founded with Nasib Arida in 1915[3] or 1916.[4] His collection Hikayat al-Mahjar (The Stories of Expatriation), which he published in 1921, extended "the scope of the readership of fiction" in modern Arabic literature according to Muhammad Mustafa Badawi.[5]

Life[edit]

Haddad was born in Homs, then a city of Ottoman Syria (modern-day Syria), to a Greek Orthodox family.[6] He went to the Russian Teachers' Seminary in Nazareth, where he met Mikha'il Na'ima and Nasib Arida.[7] In 1907, he immigrated to New York, where he founded the Arabic-language magazine As-Sayeh (The Traveler) in 1912,[8] which continued to be published until 1957.[1][a] It presented the works of such Mahjari literary figures as Amin Rihani, Kahlil Gibran, Elia Abu Madi, and Na'ima.[2] In 1915[3] or 1916[4] along with Arida he co-founded the Pen League in New York, an Arabic-language literary society, later joined by Gibran, Na'ima and other Mahjari poets in 1920.[1] In 1921, he published his collection Hikayat al-Mahjar (The Stories of Expatriation) in As-Sayeh. Another of his works, Intiba'at Mughtarib (Travel Account), which he had written after a short visit to Syria, was published in Damascus in 1962.[1]

Works[edit]

Title Periodical or publisher Location Date Translated title
حكايات المهجر As-Sayeh New York 1921 The Stories of Expatriation
انطباعات مغترب في سورية وزارة الثقافة والارشاد القومي Damascus 1962 Travel Account in Syria

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ As-Sayeh is on microfilm in the Library of Congress.[2]

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Bawardi, Hani J. (2015). The Making of Arab Americans: From Syrian Nationalism to U.S. Citizenship (1st ed.). Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-47730-752-6.
  • Badawi, M.M. (1992). Modern Arabic Literature. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521331975.
  • Haiek, Joseph R. (1984). Arab-American Almanac. News Circle Publishing House. ISBN 978-0-915652-21-1.
  • Literary innovation in modern Arabic literature. Herder. 2000.
  • Media History Digest. Vol. 5. 1985.
  • Meisami, Julie Scott; Starkey, Paul, eds. (1998). Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature. Vol. 1. Routledge. ISBN 9780415185714.
  • Moreh, Shmuel (1976). Modern Arabic Poetry. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 9004047956.
  • Popp, Richard Alan (2001). "Al-Rābiṭah al-Qalamīyah, 1916". Journal of Arabic Literature. 32 (1). Brill: 30–52. doi:10.1163/157006401X00123. JSTOR 4183426.

External links[edit]