Elia Abu Madi

Elia Abu Madi was born in the village of Al-Muhaydithah in Mount Lebanon and moved to Alexandria at eleven to work as a tobacco merchant, writing poetry in his spare time. In 1912, he immigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn and becoming a founding pillar of the New York Pen League alongside Gibran and Naimy.

Abu Madi published the influential Arabic newspaper Al-Samir for nearly three decades. His poetry, celebrated for its exquisite musicality and philosophical optimism in the face of life's mysteries—most famously in his masterpiece 'Al-Talasim' (The Talismans) and 'Ibtasim' (Smile)—made him the most widely memorized modern Arab poet across the globe.