Masoud Juni

Masoud Juni was born in 1939 in the village of Mashqita, Latakia during the period of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. After completing high school, he traveled to and resided in Egypt in 1957 where he earned a Bachelor's degree from the Egyptian Military Academy in 1959 and later returned to Syria to study Law in the University of Damascus. He became an officer in the Syrian Arab Army before being transferred to the Syrian Civil Defence Forces which he became the director of in Latakia and Tartous. He began writing in the 60s and joined the Arab Writers Union in Syria, rising to become one of its prominent members and later becoming the president of its branch in Latakia. His first published work was Songs for Love and People which he published in Damascus in 1968, a poetry book that, like most of his works, contains nationalist, sentimental and romantic poems. He would later continue to publish four more publications in Damascus, three books of poetry and a novel from 1971 to 1991. He died on Thursday 16 May 1991 at the age of 53, leaving behind three unpublished manuscripts, a novel, A House of Basalt, the second volume of The Dual Says and a novel talking about political life and society in the 1960s. The first two books would be published in Damascus in 1992 and 1994 respectively, while the third unnamed novel remains unreleased to this day. He was known for his sentimental poems about love and nationalism, such as "Your eyes are Poetr" and "A Basalt House". He was also a supporter of the Palestinian cause and the Arab unity. He was considered one of the most influential Syrian writers of his generation.