Georges Henein

Henein, Georges (1914-73). Egyptian poet, editor, and journalist. For over a decade (1937-48) Henein led an active Surrealist group in Cairo, keeping up its contacts with the main movement and writing many poems, tracts, manifestos, and short stories (Déraisons d'être, 1938; Pour une conscience sacrilège, 1945). After a rift with Breton, Henein created a more informal and eclectic grouping, centred on the journal La Part du sable, where Egyptians figured alongside French writers such as Bonnefoy, Henri Thomas, and Jean Grenier. When, like his Jewish friend Jabès, Henein (a Copt) bowed to Arab nationalist pressures and left Egypt in the late 1950s, he turned to political journalism. Although from 1956 he eschewed publication, he never stopped writing creatively, and the works published since his death, including Pour un pays inutile (1977), La Force de saluer (1978), and L'Esprit frappeur (1983), have attracted increasing attention as they reveal an unusual alliance of intellectual brilliance, polemical drive, and poetic fancy.

[Michael Sheringham]