The Mahjar (, one of its more literal meanings being "the Arabs diaspora"
Like their predecessors in the
Nahda movement (or the "Arab Renaissance"), writers of the Mahjar movement were stimulated by their personal encounter with the
Western world and participated in the renewal of Arabic literature,
[ hence their proponents being sometimes referred to as writers of the "late Nahda".][Somekh, "The Neo-Classical Poets" in M.M. Badawi (ed.) "Modern Arabic Literature", Cambridge University Press 1992, pp. 36-82.] Kahlil Gibran is considered to have been the most influential of the "Mahjari poets".[
]
North America
First periodicals
As worded by David Levinson and Melvin Ember, "the drive to sustain some Arab cultural identity among the immigrant communities in North America" was reinforced from the beginning when educated immigrants launched Arabic-language newspapers and literary societies in both the New York and Boston areas to encourage poetry and writing, with the aim of keeping alive and enriching the Arab culture."
The Pen League
The Pen League ( / ) was the first
The primary goals of the Pen League were, in Naimy's words as Secretary, "to lift Arabic literature from the quagmire of stagnation and imitation, and to infuse a new life into its veins so as to make of it an active force in the building up of the Arab nations".[, qtd. by Nadeem Naimy in The Lebanese Prophets of New York, American University of Beirut, 1985, p. 18.] As Naimy expressed in the by-laws he drew up for the group:
The tendency to keep our language and literature within the narrow bounds of aping the ancients in form and substance is a most pernicious tendency; if left unopposed, it will soon lead to decay and disintegration... To imitate them is a deadly shame... We must be true to ourselves if we would be true to our ancestors.[, qtd. by Nadeem Naimy in The Lebanese Prophets of New York, American University of Beirut, 1985, pp. 18-18.]
Literary historian Nadeem Naimy assesses the group's importance as having shifted the criteria of aesthetic merit in Arabic literature:
Focusing on Man rather than on language, on the human rather than on the law and on the spirit rather than on the letter, the Mahjar (Arab emigrant) School is said to have ushered Arabic literature from its age old classicism into the modern era.
Members of the Pen League included: Nasib Arida, Rashid Ayyub, Wadi Bahout, William Catzeflis (or Katsiflis), Kahlil Gibran (Chairman), Abd al-Masih Haddad, Nadra Haddad, Elia Abu Madi, Mikhail Naimy (Secretary), and Ameen Rihani.
Eight out of ten members were Greek Orthodox and two were Maronite Church.
South America
The first Arabic-language newspaper in Brazil, Al-Faiáh ( / ), appeared in Campinas in November 1895, followed by Al-Brasil ( / ) in Santos less than six months later.[ The first Arabic-language literary circle in South America, Riwaq al-Ma'arri, was founded in 1900]
Shafiq al-Ma'luf "led the major grouping of South American Mahjar poets".
Other poets include Fawzi Maalouf, al-Qarawi and Farhat.[ In contrast with the North Mahjari, southern authors much more were related with a national theme and nostalgia for homeland.][
]
Principles
Mikhail Naimy's book of literary criticism Al-Ghirbal (published in 1923) contains the main principles of the Mahjar movement.
