May Ziadeh

May Elias Ziadeh (/ziˈɑːdə/ zee-AH-də; Arabic: مي إلياس زيادة, ALA-LC: Mayy Ilyās Ziyādah; 11 February 1886 – 17 October 1941) was a Lebanese-Palestinian Maronite poet, essayist, and translator, who wrote many different works both in Arabic and in French.

Born in Nazareth, Palestine to a Lebanese father and a Palestinian mother, Ziadeh attended school in her native city and in Lebanon, before immigrating along with her family to Egypt in 1908. She started publishing her works in French (under the pen name Isis Copia) in 1911, and Kahlil Gibran entered into a correspondence with her in 1912. Being a prolific writer, she wrote for Arabic-language newspapers and periodicals, along with publishing poems and books. May Elias Ziadeh held one of the most famous literary salons in the modern Arab world in the year 1921. After suffering some personal losses at the beginning of the 1930s, she came back to Lebanon where her relatives placed her in a psychiatric hospital. After a hunger strike and a public campaign for her release, she was able to leave the hospital in 1938. Shortly after, she moved to Cairo where she later died.