Nasib Arida | |
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.jpg) Arida in 1920 | |
| Native name | نسيب عريضة |
| Born | 1887 (1887) |
| Died | 1946 (aged 58–59) New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Writer, poet |
Nasib Arida (Arabic:نسيب عريضة,ALA-LC:Nasīb ʻArīḍah; 1887–1946) was aSyrian-born poet and writer of theMahjar movement and a founding member of theNew York Pen League.
Arida was born inHoms to aSyrian Greek Orthodox family where he received his education until his immigration to the United States in 1905.[1] In New York City, Arida started working in retail and writing forAl-Hoda andMeraat-ul-Gharb. Arida later married Najeeba Haddad, the sister of fellow Homs-born writersAbd al-Masih Haddad andNadra Haddad; the couple would not have children, but would raise the daughter of another Haddad brother after the latter's wife's death in childbirth.
In 1913, Arida foundedAl-Funoon,[2] which was "the first attempt at an exclusively literary and artistic magazine by the Arab immigrant community in New York."[3] In 1915[4] or 1916[5] along with Abd al-Masih Haddad he co-founded thePen League in New York, an Arabic-language literary society, later joined byKahlil Gibran,Mikha'il Na'ima and other Mahjari poets in 1920.[6] He had one collection of poems,Perplexed Spirits (الأرواح الحائرة), published in 1946.[7] He died the same year.
Similar to other Syro-Lebanese writers and intellectuals of his time, Arida opposed theOttoman rule on Syria and repression ofSyrian nationalism. He lamented that the Syrian people were slow to act or protest, as in the following poem:
No, by my God a heartless people receive only death as a gift.
Let history turn a page of failure and settle its accounts.
Perhaps rage, perhaps shame, perhaps fire may move the heart of a coward.
All these are in us, but all they move is the tongue.[1]
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