Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 79th birthday of highly respected political poet and journalist Ounsi el-Hajj.
El-Hajj was known for his hugely popular works of poetry, which included Lan, Is This You or the Tale? and The Banquet.
But he is also revered for his work as a translator after bringing Shakespeare’s plays to millions more people by translating them into Arabic.
His work is rooted in Arab culture and politics, but it also celebrates global citizenship and the borderless joys of nature.
In his poem “Is This You or the Tale?” el-Hajj travels from the fifth century to Beirut’s Golden Age, settling somewhere timeless:
The poem reads: “And as my age / is counted in years, / likewise I wander outside this necklace / like drops of pearl.”
After working on several magazines including Pan Arab women’s magazine Al Hasna and leading Arabic daily newspaper An Nahar he co-founded Beirut tabloid Al Akhbar in 2006.
In today’s Doodle, El-Hajj wanders among sunflowers and butterflies, at home in a universal landscape.
A Google spokesman said: “El-Hajj’s work reminds us that although every birthplace is a particular spot and a precise moment, it’s also a thread in the fabric of history that makes next-door neighbors of us all.”
The doodle, celebrating El-Hajj’s birth date in South Lebanon in 1937, will be seen in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine,Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates
Source: Mirror
