Life story

Al-Ma'arri chooses for us in this book some of the scenes he experienced in his childhood, youth, and old age, and he narrates them with his elegant style, rich language, and deep life experience, which he conveys here as a distillation of a wide-ranging experience and a lively life. Ibrahim Abdul Qader Al-Ma'arri (1889–1949) is one of the founding fathers of modern Arabic writing; poetry, novel, journalism, criticism, and translation. He established with Al-Aqqad and Abdul Rahman Shukri the "Diwan Group" literary circle to defend modernity against classical literature. His entertaining articles, with their sharp satire, were published in the pages of the most important newspapers of his era. He served as editor-in-chief of more than one newspaper, was elected deputy of the Journalists Syndicate Council, and was a member of the Arabic Language Academy.