کامل کیلاني : رائد آدب الآطفال العربي

Abstract

This research paper is a valuable introduction to the life of the
pioneer of Arab children’s literature Kamel Kilani and his great
contribution in this field. However, before describing his
contribution, the researcher presented a brief idea on Arab
children’s literature. This paper is indeed an important resource
to anyone in the world hoping to learn more about Arab
children's literature. Kamel Kilani is an Egyptian writer and
translator for children, considered one of the pioneers of
children's literature in the Arab world. He was born on
20thOctober 1897 in Cairo. His father Ibrahim Kilani was a
prominent engineer. He studied English literature in high school,
and then enrolled at the Egyptian University (now Cairo
University) in 1917 and studied there till 1930. During this long
period, he read French English and other necessary subjects, and
also attended Arabic grammar, logic, and morphology classes at
al-Azhar. He started translating children's international classics
in the late 1920s. In this paper, the researcher followed
descriptive and analytical methods to collect and analyze the
data. In the first part of the paper, he discusses the introduction
of Arab children’s literature, its history and its cultural context;
after that, he discusses the life of the pioneer of Arab children’s
literature Kamel Kilani. In the next part, he presents a brief
description on the contribution of Kamel Kilani in this field and
his famous writings. In the last part of the paper, the researcher
discusses Kamel kilani’s method of writing children’s literature
and the comments of the famous writers and poets on him.