Throughout the better part of his brief life (1926-1964), Sayyab was haunted with the idea of death, the afterlife, mortality and immortality. At the end of his earthly journey, Badr made peace with himself, and thereby reconciled the two seemingly contradictory aspects of "Life" and "Death." He conquered death by humanizing it, mastering his fear of it, and by surrendering to his fate as the ultimate rest for an ailing and constantly deteriorating body. Although never an existentialist, Sayyab, at one point, entertained the idea of embracing "Existentialism," surmising that it might have the philosophical answer to his existential problem: how far and how high will he be able to carry the rock of Sisyphus? How long will his battle with destiny last and who will prevail? Sayyab was immensely in love with life, yet his poetry and personal letters ironically convey a different message and are colored with the dark clouds of dejection, frustration, loneliness, exile and poverty. These selected letters in English translation shed new light on the catastrophic life of this tragic hero and highlight important aspects of his otherwise, private moments and inner thoughts that he shared with a few elite friends that he had in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and England such as Adunis, Khalil Hawi, Youssef al-Khal, Suhail Idris, Albert Adeeb, and Ali al-Sabti. This is the story of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab in his own words without embellishment. In translating these letters, I tried to be as faithful as possible to the original Arabic text and to the meaning that I believe the poet intended. These letters are organized in chronological order and provide us with a clear image of the development and maturity of Badr both as a human being and a poet. I sincerely hope that the translation of these selected letters into English will present new material useful for Sayyab's students and scholars.

These hymns and poems were written between January 1975 and August 1976, mostly during the first year and a half of what has ironically been called the "Lebanese Civil War." The poetry and hymns in this book are an emotionally-charged document that reflects the state of mind of a young Lebanese poet madly in love with Beirut and Lebanon during the seventies when Lebanon was an oasis of fun and was bursting with creativity and positive energy on all fronts: literary, social, economic and political. Beirut was the major capital of literary production in the Middle East. The poetry in this book is a song for Lebanon. It is a celebration of its glory and endurance and a call for the Lebanese to unite. It is a cry in the desert of discontent against those who thought that destroying the previous society would bring about a new age of contentment, only to prove that their vision was wrong and that they were but a "false alarm" that simply caused unimaginable death, destruction, disappointment and sorrow. These hymns are both a praise for what Beirut stood for and represented in the minds and consciousness of the generation of Arab intellectuals and at the same time, they are a eulogy for the city that the Lebanese were unable to protect and preserve because of the many who took it for granted and others who allowed their jealousy and bitter ideologies to put the first nail in its coffin.