Veteran Tunisian critic, academic and author Hussein Al Wad has passed away on Saturday, June 2, 2018. He was 70. Al Wad leaves behind a rich cultural legacy.

According to Tunis Afrique Presse, the late Al Wad passed away in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he had been hospitalized after a health crisis.

Al Wad was born in Moknine in northern Tunisia and obtained a Ph.D. in Arabic language and literature in 1987 from the University of Tunis.

He filled a number of academic positions including Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Kairouan, Director of the Bourguiba Institute of Living Languages, and Tunisia’s Representative at the Executive Council of the Arab Leaque Educational and Cultural Organization (ALECSO).  He was also a professor at King Saud University in Riyadh.

He authored numerous publications in the fields of literature and poetry such as “On the History of Literature: Concepts and Approaches”, “The Aesthetics of the Ego in the Poetry of Al A’sha Al Kabeer”, “Some Literature and Language”, “Language and Poetry in the Poetry Collection of Abi Tammam”, “Applying ‘Hirba’ Al Naqd’ to the Poetry in the Abbasid Era”.

In 2011, he won the Golden Comar Award for Arabic Literature for his novel, “Scents of the City”. Moreover, his second novel “His Excellency the Minister” was shortlisted for the 2013 Arabic Booker Prize. In 2018, Al Wad won the Tawfiq Bakkar Recognition Award for the body of his works from the Tunis International Book Fair.