إسكندر حبش: The Silent Ink of a Poet and His Distant Cities
The passing of Lebanese poet and translator Iskandar Habash in Beirut on a Thursday evening was not a fleeting event, but a tragedy that cast a shadow over the entire Arab literary scene. This was a man who filled pages with poetry, contemplation, translation, and silence, leaving behind an indelible mark of ink and words. He lived quietly and departed quietly, as if the silence that accompanied him in life also wanted to be his finale. A poet, journalist, and organic intellectual, he combined the refinement of poetry with the depth of thought, and between an isolation he chose and a noise he wrote about without getting involved in it.
The Life and Literary Journey
Born in Beirut in 1963, Iskandar Habash graduated from the Lebanese University. His literary career began in the 1980s, a generation formed in the shadow of war, anxiety, and the search for meaning. His name became associated with the newspaper As-Safir, where he worked as a cultural editor for decades. There, he established an intellectual and poetic corner considered among the most read for its emotional honesty and contemplative depth. He crafted his unique voice through poetry, translation, and critical essays, remaining a loyalist to free thought and the language that illuminates the darkness. (Source: Annahar)
Habash was not a traditional poet nor a follower of a particular wave, but rather the owner of a unique experience in vision and language. From his first collection, Those Cities in 1997, through What Did You Do With Gold, What Did You Do With the Rose in 2002, and I Have No Hope With This Silence in 2009, to Love Always Makes Mistakes in 2012, his texts reveal the sensitivity of a human being wounded by his questions, mocking the absurdity of reality, and believing that poetry is the last refuge of the soul before falling. He wrote with philosophical awareness about love, time, and absence, making the poem a space to resist nothingness.
A Translator of Worlds
Iskandar Habash was also known as a translator of refined taste. He translated the works of major international writers into Arabic, including Charles Bukowski, Paul Auster, John Berger, and Orhan Pamuk. His translations were not a linguistic craft, but an intellectual and human adventure. He chose texts that resembled him and that resonated with his inner questions, conveying them into Arabic with the spirit of the creator, not the copyist. He once wrote in As-Safir that translation is a crossing of the soul from one shore to another, a phrase that summarizes his view of the word as a bridge between worlds.
Habash preferred to stay away from the spotlight, writing about the cities and faces that pass and leave a mark. Beirut was at the heart of his texts: the city of beauty and fatigue, love and betrayal, his small homeland in which he saw the image of the whole world. He wrote about it and about Paris and other cities he lived in as a permanent traveler, searching for a home in language more than in the land. He said in one of his last articles that every city resembles an incomplete line in a long poem that never ends, as if he were describing his continuous journey in writing and alienation.
A Legacy of Words
With his passing, a chapter from modern Lebanese literature closes. However, his impact remains in the cultural memory, because his presence was not in the number but in the type, and not in the noise but in the depth. He left us a legacy of poetry, translation, and reflective articles that redefine the meaning of writing in a rapidly disappearing time. He was among those who write with honesty, making their presence transcend absence.
These verses today seem like a lamenting prophecy, as if the ship that feared arrival had finally reached the port of eternal silence, leaving the sea to tell its story. Thus, October 2025 concludes with ink of sadness, as Lebanon bid farewell in just two weeks to three of its cultural icons: the Zajal poet Talie Hamdan, the linguist and media personality Bassam Barrak, and now Iskandar Habash. The end is sealed with the loss of the greats who shaped the conscience of the Lebanese and Arab language and proved that the honest word does not die, but turns into a light that guides those who come after them. May God have mercy on those who wrote to remain alive.
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