Kamal Kheir Beik

Kamal Kheir Beik was a Syrian-born poet and dissident. He is known for his Arabic poems written in free verse and for his frequent exiles. He joined the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) in 1953 and was sentenced to death twice for his alleged role in the assassination of an army chief in 1955 and for his involvement in a coup attempt against the Lebanese President in 1960. He escaped to Beirut, Jordan, and Paris, where he resumed his literary studies and obtained his PhD from the University of Geneva in 1972. His PhD thesis was about the modernist movement in Arabic poetry, which he was part of. He published several books of poems under different pseudonyms, such as Cadmus and Kamal Mohamed. He was appointed head of information of the SSNP in 1959 and remained loyal to the party until his death. He was assassinated in Beirut on 5 November 1980 together with two other members of the SSNP. The murder is one of the unsolved cases in Lebanon. His poems were collected by his close friends and published posthumously in three books. His poems expressed his opposition to the dominant ideologies and views in the Arab World, such as Arabism and nationalism, and his longing for freedom and justice. He is considered one of the pioneers of Arabic free verse and one of the most influential poets of his generation.