Muhammad al-Maghut

Muhammad al-Maghut was born to an impoverished peasant family in Salamiyah in central Syria. Imprisoned in the mid-1950s for political activism, he began writing poetry on cigarette paper in his cell, inventing a raw, visceral, unmetered idiom that became the foundation of modern Arabic prose poetry (qasidat al-nathr).

Joining the avant-garde Shi'r magazine group in Beirut, Maghut published groundbreaking collections such as Sadness in the Moonlight and A Room with a Million Walls. He also wrote scathing, wildly popular satirical plays performed by Syrian comedic icon Duraid Lahham—including Ghorba, Day'at Tishreen, and Kasak Ya Watan—which brutally mocked political repression and social stagnation.