Yūsuf al-Khāl (1917-87) was a Lebanese poet and writer born in Syria. He graduated in 1934 from the American School in Tripoli, where he won first prize for a text titled Āmālī fī l-mustaqbal ("My wishes for the future"). In that same year, he left his family home and school in order to commence a journalistic career (mainly at the magazine al-Makshūf ). Secretly joining the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), al-Khāl began writing for its mouthpiece, al-Nahḍa , along with Fuʾād Sulaymān (1912-51). Within