Hasan Tawfiq was an Egyptian poet, literary critic and journalist. He belongs tothe third wave of the Arabic and Egyptian literary movement known as "The New Poetry." A major part of Tawfiq's poems consist of free verses. Tawfiq was known in the Arab world as a journalist and in Egypt he worked for some time as editor-in-chief of the Ar-Raya journal. Tawfiq wrote articles for the "Culture" section of the Qatar-based Ash-Sharq journal. The literary alias of Tawfiq is "Magnoon al-Arab." It derives from a Middle Eastern tragic love story, Majnun and Layla.
Life
Tawfiq was born in Cairo, Egypt on 31 August 1943. In 1965 he graduated from the University of Cairo, Faculty of Literature and received a Bachelor diploma. After 13 years, in 1978, he received the Master diploma in Arabic literature. He takes an active part in the cultural life of Egypt, and belongs to different Literature associations, including the Writers Association of Egypt since 1966, The Writer's Workshop of Cairo since 1967 and the Association of New Literature of Cairo since 1971. Tawfiq noted who had a significant influence on his future works: "After my teacher, miss Suheir al-Qalmawi, has read my verses, I became her favorite student. That made me very glad because al-Qalmawi was the first person who discovered me like a poet. She compared me with known American writerEdgar Allan Poe. I have heard about this author but never read any of his texts. That's why just next day I found a book with Poe's verses and read there his poem "The Raven". I didn't understand some moments, but soon I found my teacher, professor Muhammad Mandur, who translated this poem into Arabic. He, and the other professor, Yusef Khalif, helped me on my way to become a poet in future". Tawfiq noted the influence of the Writers Association of Egypt on his future literary preferences, stating "I will never forget, that through Writers Association of Egypt, authors of my generation had opportunity to become acquainted with such famous writers and poets as Salah Abdel Sabour, Farouk Khorshid, Abdelgafar Makawi, Izuddin Ismail, Husein Nisar, Abdel Qader al-Qytt, Abdel Rahman al-Sharqawi, Ahmad Kemal Zaki, Ahmad Husein as-Saui, Muhammad Abdel Wahid, Malek Abdel Aziz and others..." In 1990 Tawfiq's Sinbad and the New Voyage won the award for best poem in the Foundation of Abdulaziz Saud al-Babtain's Prize for Poetic Creativity in Cairo.
Magnoon al-Arab between thunder of anger and night of desire
Then night of arrest of Magnoon al-Arab
Literary views
In his poetic anthology Al A'mal Ash-Shi'riyya and in preface to Blossoming Rose Tawfiq stated that he does not support poetry in prose, because it does not sound like a good verse, but at the same time Tawfiq insisted that he supported existence of this genre itself. Like other specialists of Arabic literature, Tawfiq knew the poetry of al-Mutanabbi. In his own verses Tawfiq appealed to al-Mutanabbi's qasidas and biography, using a lot of inter-textual elements. Also Tawfiq gave an estimate of al-Mutanabbi's panegyrics, raising the question of engagement of poetry and politics. Tawfiq compared al-Mutanabbi's panegyrics to Sayf al-Daula, with Mohamed Hassanein Heikal's essays to late Egyptian presidentGamal Abdel Nasser.
