Fakhuri, Umar

Born 1896 in Beirut; died there Apr. 24, 1946. Lebanese Arabic writer. A founder of Syrian and Lebanese democratic literature.

Fakhuri studied law in Paris between 1920 and 1923. With A. Tabet (A. Thabit) and Raif al-Khuri, he founded the League of Struggle Against Fascism of Syria and Lebanon and its journal, al-Tariq (The Path), in 1941. His novella Hanna the Corpse (1926) was the first Lebanese work to deal with the fate of the common man, who has become the victim of social conditions. Fakhuri’s short stories, articles, and sketches, such as those in the collection The Enchanted Door (1926), sought to rally his fellow countrymen.

In the late 1920’s Fakhuri turned to literary criticism; he called for a new literature of realism (Four Parts; 1926) and advanced the slogan “service to the people” (A Writer in the Marketplace; 1944). His topical writings of the 1940’s, collected in Without Mercy (1942), Lebanese Reality (1943), and The Soviet Union Is the Cornerstone in the Construction of a New World (1944), were devoted to the theme of struggle for national independence and social progress. Fakhuri translated works by A. France and R. Rolland.