The doodle is illustrated by guest artist Nora Zeid.
Born in Sudan in 1936 to a Libyan father and Egyptian mother, the Sudanese–Libyan poet, writer, playwright and diplomat spent his formative years in Alexandria, before moving to Cairo where he studied literature and the sciences and worked as an editor for Egyptian and Sudanese newspapers.
"Thread together by the language of revolution, Al-Fayturi’s work breathed new life into contemporary Arabic literature with a fusion of mystic philosophy, African culture, and a call for a future free from oppression," reads the note provided by Google.
In 1956, Al-Fayturi published his first collection of poems entitled Songs of Africa, followed by numerous plays, books, and other poetry collections. Living across North Africa, his career climaxed when he reached his fifties with the release of his final two books in 2005.
Widely regarded as a trailblazer of modernist Arabic literature, Al-Fayturi died on 24 April 2015 in Rabat, Morocco. In an obituary published by the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star, Al-Fayrouti's work was described as particularly drawing upon his experience as a black African living among non-black Arabs, and thus addressing issues such as race, class and colonialism.
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