Ilyās Ḥabīb Farḥāt (1893-1976) is one of the pre-eminent poets of the Arab emigré (mahjar) school in South America. He was born in 1893 in Kafr Shīmā, Lebanon where he attended various village schools, learning basic Arabic and English. At the age of ten, he left school to work as carpenter, typesetter, and manual labourer in Beirut and Zahleh. In 1910 he followed his brothers to Brazil, where he lived in several cities, including São Paulo and Brasília, and worked as a pig farmer, journalist, peddler, and merchant.