Maged Younes

Having grown up in a multicultural environment, I had the fortune to immerse myself in various cultures. This allowed me to enjoy every part of my life in different countries (Egypt, Senegal, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland, and now sharing my time between Portugal and Spain). I love languages (including dialects), and so it was only natural that I immersed myself early in Literature, Philosophy and Poetry, with Music complementing the picture.

This is not the whole story, though. I am actually a scientist, and have been a Professor of Toxicology and Biochemical Pharmacology before joining the UN system in senior positions of the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. Following my retirement, and while I continued contributing to Science, I slowly started to move towards my poetic and artistic interests. I used to write poems as a young student, and to play drums and sing in amateur bands. The trigger to getting back to my passion of writing came when daughter Lena started writing amazing songs. It was after a breath session with Lena that I wrote a song about my life, to which Lena wrote the music. We jointly wrote another song (My Daughter) dedicated from me to her and from her to her baby daughter Mayla, which will be part of lena's first album to be released this year.

My poetry is oriented towards Nature and is an expression of my love for it and my conviction that it is the duty of every human being to take their role as stewards of the planet seriously. I wrote the first poem when I woke up one day with a verse resonating in my mind ("The day the sun will shine by night, the day the moon will lose its light"): this was the re-initiation of my poetry. The artistic work of my soulmate and dear wife Evelyn, which is also an expression of her reverence to Nature and for which she utilises materials from Nature was a great inspiration for me to write more Nature Poetry that resonates with her work. Together we published a book in which her art and my poetry offer a unique synthesis of art and poetry: "Songs for Mother Nature". More projects are in the pipeline for work on poetry and fiction.