Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
Muhammad al-Fayturi's 85th Birthday
Today’s Doodle, illustrated by guest artist Nora Zeid, celebrates Sudanese–Libyan poet, playwright, and diplomat Muhammad al-Fayturi. Thread together by the language of revolution, al-Fayturi’s work breathed new life into contemporary Arabic literature with a fusion of mystic philosophy, African culture, and a call for a future free from oppression.
Muhammad Muftah Rajab al-Fayturi was born on this day in 1936 in Al-Geneina, a town on the western border of Sudan, to a Libyan father and Egyptian mother. At 3 years old, he moved to Egypt, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. He went on to study literature and the sciences at university and found work as an editor for Egyptian and Sudanese newspapers following graduation.
In 1956, al-Fayturi published his first collection of poems entitled “Songs of Africa,” which explored the impacts of colonialism on the collective African identity and encouraged his readership to embrace their continent’s cultural roots.
He published numerous plays, books, and other poetry collections as he lived and worked as a writer and journalist across North Africa, from Lebanon to his birth country of Sudan. Almost 50 years after the release of his first collection, al-Fayturi’s literary career climaxed with the release of his final two books in 2005. Today, he is widely regarded as a trailblazer of modernist Arabic literature.
And as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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