On 16 September 1881, José Martí (1853–95), the Cuban revolutionary and poet, living in exile in New York (1881–95), penned a chronicle on the ‘Urābī revolution in Egypt. Shortly thereafter, the chronicle appeared in his regular column in the Caracas newspaper La Opinión Nacional. In ‘La revuelta en Egipto. – Interesante problema’ (‘The Revolt in Egypt. – An Interesting Problem’), Martí praises the 1881 popular revolution against British and French imperialism, led by the Egyptian nationalist Colonel Aḥmad ‘Urābī Pasha, and acknowledges its swift victory. His impassioned chronicle begins: it is no ‘simple foreign news’ (‘una simple noticia extranjera’), but ‘a serious event that moves Europe and convulses Africa’ (‘un grave suceso que mueve a Europa, estremece a África’) (14: 113). Though he had never been to Egypt, he describes the country as ‘heady and rebellious like its steeds’ (‘airoso y rebelde como sus corceles’) (14: 116). In his column ‘Escenas Europeas’ (European Vignettes), his chronicle’s picturesque scene is a ‘diorama’ that conjures the event with rhetorical flair: the Egyptian colonel on his horse, brandishing his sword, surrounded by rebellious officers. He hails ‘Urābī, who speaks ‘a picturesque Arabic’ (‘un pintoresco árabe’) and exudes ‘gallant courtesy’ (‘gallarda cortesía’), as ‘a robust colonel, with immense popularity, full of the Egyptian spirit, Muslim and independent’ (‘un robusto coronel, dotado de condiciones populares, lleno del espíritu egipcio, muslímico e independiente’) (14: 114). Fittingly, Martí, the Apostle of Cuba’s independence, extols the hero of the ‘Urābī revolution. His treatment of a geographically remote and contemporary event is deeply telling of connections between Latin America and the Arab world that would be deep-ened in the mid-twentieth century.

Besides Martí’s attention to the 1881–82 ‘Urābī revolution, his oeuvre shows an enduring interest in the Arab world. Surprisingly, there is little scholarship on Martí’s relationship to the Orient. In Versos sencillos (Simple Verses, 1891), the speaker declares: ‘I know of Egypt …’ (‘Yo sé de Egipto’) (25).