Yusuf al-Khal

Yusuf al-Khal
يوسف الخال
Yusuf al-Khal
Born(1917-12-25)December 25, 1917
DiedMarch 9, 1987(1987-03-09) (aged 69)
OccupationPoet, writer
LanguageVarieties of Arabic
GenreProse poetry
Literary movementAvant-garde
Website
yusufalkhal.com

Yusuf al-Khal (Arabic: يوسف الخال; December 25, 1917 – March 9, 1987) was a Syrian-Lebanese poet, journalist, and publisher. He is considered the greatest exponent of avantgardist prose poetry (qaṣīdat al-natr) in the Arab world as well one of the pioneers of Arabic surrealist poetry.

With fellow poets Adonis and Ounsi el-Hajj, al-Khal founded the magazine Shi'r ("Poetry") in Beirut in 1957, initiating a movement to modernize Arabic literature. Al-Khal's poetry has been recognized in Near East poetry collections. He was also one of the first to translate English-language poets such as Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Frost into Arabic.