Abu Shadi, Ahmad Zaki

Born Feb. 9, 1892, in Cairo; died Apr. 12, 1955, in Washington. Arab (Egyptian) writer, philologist, translator. Studied at the University of London (1912–22); physician, bacteriologist.

Abu Shadi was the founder of the Apollo literary circle in Cairo (1936) and of the periodical Apollo, around which were grouped exponents of various currents of Egyptian poetry. He published the magazine Adabi in Alexandria from 1939. In April 1946 he moved to the USA. He edited newspapers and magazines of the Arab community in New York and was a professor of Arabic literature at the Asiatic Institute. He wrote lyric qasidas, stories, and plays in verse; these appear in the anthologies Dewdrops at Dawn (1910), Rays and Shadows (1931), and Visions of Spring (1933); the historical tales Ibn Zaydun in Prison (1925) and The Death of Imru al-Kaysa (1925); and others. Abu Shadi did research on Arabic poetics and wrote articles of literary criticism. He translated Eastern and Western European poets, including the ghazals of Hafiz, the Rubāiyāt of Omar Khayyam, and the tragedies of W. Shakespeare.