Khalil al-Khuri

Khalīl al-Khūrī (خليل الخوري; 28 October 1836, Choueifat — 26 October 1907 ) was a central figure of the Nahda. He was the owner of Hadiqat al-Akhbar ('The News Garden', 1858–1911), the first Arabic newspaper in Beirut, the origins of which may be pinpointed to a group of Syrians assembled at the forgotten Médawar Literary Circle. Quoting Jens Hanssen and Hicham Safieddine, he "was the first to popularize a sense of Syrian identity."

In the words of Basiliyus Bawardi, he "believed that an adoption of a new Western literary genre into the traditional Arabic literary tradition would provide the Arab culture with tools for reviving the Arabic language and create new styles of expression." Hadiqat al-Akhbar "was the first Arabic newspaper to publish translations from Western narrative fiction, especially from the French Romance stories." Khuri also published a fictional narrative of his own, Wayy, Idhan Lastu bi-Ifranji ('Alas, I Am Not a Foreigner'), in Hadiqat al-Akhbar (1859–61). The literary activity of the newspaper "played a substantial role in changing the aesthetic literary taste, and paved the way for the birth of an authentic Arabic narrative fiction."