Today’s Doodle honours Sudanese–Libyan poet, writer, and diplomat Muhammad al-Fayturi, as illustrated by guest artist Nora Zeid. Al-work Fayturi’s injected new life into contemporary Arabic writing with a blend of mystic philosophy, African culture, and a demand for a future free of oppression, all threaded together by the language of revolution.
On this day in 1936, Muhammad Muftah Rajab al-Fayturi was born to a Libyan father and an Egyptian mother in Al-Geneina, a town on Sudan’s western border. He went to Egypt when he was three years old, where he spent the rest of his life. He went on to university to study literature and science, and after graduation, he worked as an editor for Egyptian and Sudanese newspapers.
In 1956, al-Fayturi published ‘Sunrise and Moonset’ and ‘Lover from Africa,’ a collection of poems that investigated the effects of colonialism on African collective identity and encouraged readers to embrace their continent’s cultural traditions.
He lived and worked as a writer and journalist across North Africa, from Lebanon to his natal nation of Sudan, and authored numerous plays, books, and other poetry collections. Al-literary Fayturi’s career came to a close about 50 years after the publication of his debut collection, with the publication of his final two books in 2005. He is now largely considered as a modernist Arabic literature leader.