La vie littéraire autour de la revue libanaise Shi‘r (1957–1970)

In the glittering literary and artistic life of 1960s Beirut, the ‘avant-garde’ review Shiʹr (‘Poetry’) emerges undisputedly as a central cultural institution. Its founder, Yūsuf al-Khāl, gathered around his forward-looking review a broad network of promotional avenues: the newspaper al-Nahār, for example, through its cultural page that was being edited by one of the most radical protagonists of Shi‘r, Ounsi El-Hage (Unsī al-ājj); the literary clique of ‘Thursdayʹs Shi‘r’, which presented a strong voice in the local and regional press; the publishing house, Dār Majallat Shi‘r, established in 1958, through which al-Khāl disseminated modern Arabic poetry, anthologies of foreign poetry and essays on the modern conception of poetry; the review Adab that al-Khāl established in 1962 in order to extend the spirit of Shi‘r to other fields of literature; and Gallery One, which al-Khāl founded in 1963 and which provided a strong connection to the artistic circles of Beirut.