This book was issued to coincide with the Second International Cairo Forum on Arabic Poetry, held in March and organized by the Supreme Council for Culture in Cairo, with the theme of this year’s forum being the Matran.
This book takes a new approach to Khalil Matran (1871-1949), recognized as one of the most important Arab poets: an examination of his prose works. The author has combed Egyptian papers and journals over a span of nearly fifty years, finding dozens of Matran’s articles on criticism, politics, language, and literature, from classical Arabic rhetoric to Ahmed Orabi and Mustafa Kamel, from Empress Eugenie to Abduh al-Hamuli, Sheikh Salama Higazi, Ahmed Shawqi, Hafez Ibrahim, al-Barudi, al-Rafi’i, and Shakespeare.
Unfortunately, the editors of the new edition do not include the publication date or place of the original edition, saying only, “This book was printed from an old edition.” Could they not have made this simple addition?
Arwa’ ma kataba Khalil Matran, by Dr. Mohammed Sabri, Supreme Council for Culture, 166 pp.
