Abbas Baydoun

Abbas Baydoun is a Lebanese poet, novelist, and journalist. Born in 1945, near Tyre, he is widely considered one of the Arab world’s most influential literary voices. His works—spanning styles and genres—have been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, German and Italian. With a B.A. in Arabic literature from the Lebanese University in Beirut and a maitrise in Islamic Studies from the Sorbonne in Paris, Baydoun has been engaged variously as a political activist, school teacher, full-time poet, and since 1997, the cultural editor for the daily newspaper as-Safir.