The late Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani (1923-1998) came to Egypt in 1945, at the age of 22, and when he left after 3 years, he did not know that he had been associated with her until the last moment of his life. "I was twenty-two years old, the day I was appointed attaché to the Syrian embassy in Cairo," he said.
"Cairo was in the forties the capital of Arab capitals, and it was an orchard for thought and art Almighty," he added.