Issam Abdel-Masih Mahfouz (also written 'Isam/Essam Mahfood/Mahfuz') (12 September 1939 – 3 February 2006) was a Lebanese playwright, poet, journalist, author, translator, and critic.
His literary works include dozens of books on politics, culture, and theater, as well as “dialogues” - imagined exchanges with historical figures.
Mahfouz's own plays met immediate critical and popular success, and inaugurated a new era of theatrical production in the Arab world.
Mahfouz was born on September 12, 1939, in the southern Lebanese town of Jdeideh Marjeyoun, to a culturally active Christian family.
His father, Abdel-Masiḥ, was educated in Jerusalem and began producing plays in Marjayoun with the backing of his brother Ramez, although he earned his living as a dentist.
Abdel-Masiḥ was also one of the founders of ‘The Marjayoun Awakening’ (al-Nahḍah al-Marj’āyūnīyah), a weekly newspaper focused on socio-economic conditions in the country.
The family home in Marjayoun hosted many poets and critics, including Ahmad al-Safi al Najafi, Bchara Al-Khoury, Amin Nakhle, Ameen Rihani, Sheikh Abdul-Hussein Sadek, Sheikh Abdul-Hussein Sharafeddine, Bulus Salameh, Ahmed Aref el-Zein, Suleiman Daher, al-Sayyed Mohsen al-Amin, and many others.
[7] His childhood plays, with titles like “The Prisoner” and “The Wheat Seller”, revolved around the same issues he went on to develop in his adult productions: love, justice, and freedom.
In 1958, Mahfouz met the poet Shawki Abu Shaqra, who in turn introduced him to Yussuf Al-Khal, the founder of “Majallat Shi’ir” (Poetry Magazine), a publication about modern poetry in the Arab world in which Mahfouz published some of his poems and was a member of its editorial board from 1958 to 1964 when the magazine temporarily ceased publication and from 1967 to 1970 when it was revived.
Once he had moved to France in 1975 he began writing prose poetry drawing on the image of Abd al-Rahman I, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of Spain who was known as “The Entrant”.
In keeping with his belief that art must be political, his plays are noted for their mordant social commentary, humanist perspective, and occasional surrealism.
While in Paris, he enrolled in l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociale and earned his diplôme under Jacques Berque.
[13] He was partially paralyzed, but insisted on using his left hand to complete four books: al-A’māl al-Masraḥīyah, Tab’a Munaqah wa Mazid (The Dramatic Works with Additions and Revisions); Asātithātuna Fī al-Qarn al-‘Ishrīn (Our Teachers in the 20th Century); al-A’mal al-Shi’rīyah (Poetic Works), Dar al-Farabi, 2016; Riḥla Thaqafīyah fī Sab’īnat al-Qarn al-‘ishrīn Bayn al-Sharq wa-al-Maghrib (A Cultural Voyage in Nineteen-Seventies: East and West), Dar al-Bayrouni, 2006.