Hasan Tawfiq was an Egyptian poet, literary critic and journalist. He belongs to the third wave of the Arabic and Egyptian literary movement known as "The New Poetry." A major part of Tawfiq's poems consist of free verses. Tawfiq was known in the Arab world as a journalist and in Egypt he worked for some time as editor-in-chief of the Ar-Raya journal. Tawfiq wrote articles for the "Culture" section of the Qatar-based Ash-Sharq journal. The literary alias of Tawfiq is "Magnoon al-Arab." It derives from a Middle Eastern tragic love story, Majnun and Layla.