1953 Iltizām

Although this term was first used around 1950 as a translation from Jean-Paul Sartre’s engagement, it came into prominence in 1953 when, in the first issue of the literary journal al-Ādāb, the author Suhayl Idrīss (1925 – 2008, Lebanon) proclaimed the concept of ‘committed literature’ (reference). The attractiveness of the concept of ‘commitment’ to Arab writers of this period may be attributed to a combination of social and political factors of which some negative, such as the Palestinian war of 1948, and some positive, such as the initial feeling after the Egyptian Free Officers’ Revolt of 1952 (reference).