He wrote many novels that were adapted into films, and served as editor for many years of the literary journal Rose al-Yūsuf.

[2] Abdel Quddous was born in Cairo, Egypt, to an Egyptian father from Gharbia Governorate, Mohamed Abd El-Quddous, and Lebanese journalist Rose al Yusuf.

[3] His father, Mohamed Abdel Quddous, an Egyptian theater and film actor, motivated him to pursue a career in law.

[4][5][6][7] He drew inspiration for his epistolary Arabic novel, La anam (translated into English as I Do Not Sleep) from editing letters sent by advice-seeking readers to the journal Ruz al-Yusuf.

[citation needed] One of Ihsan's first articles was an attack on the British Ambassador Miles Lampson (Lord Killearn).

He won early fame by writing articles exposing the government's role in providing the troops with defective arms during the Palestine War for which he was imprisoned.

Ihsan was jailed again in 1954 after writing an article, titled the secret society that rules Egypt "al-jam'iyya al-sir-riyya al-lati tahkum Misr," that revealed Nasser's machinations in the March Crisis.