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It has been a sad week for Saudi arts and culture, with the sudden death of the poet Prince Badr bin Abdulmohsin. To those who don’t speak Arabic, all I can say is you have missed out on a lot. To use Western sporting terminology, Prince Badr was the Greatest Of All Time in the world of Arabic poetry. In terms of his influence on local culture, he was on a par with the Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho or the American-English poet T.S. Eliot.

It was therefore no surprise that Arabic-language social media was flooded with condolences by mourners. Fans posted tributes of their favourite poems and song lyrics, from the celebratory “Foug Ham Al-Sohb” (Above the Clouds) sung by the Saudi artist Mohammed Abdo, to the deeply emotional “Al-Mussafer” (Voyager) sung by his compatriot Rashid Al-Majid. With such a large and varied catalog, it can be argued that Prince Badr wrote the soundtrack to the life of a whole generation over nearly four decades (yours truly included!).

And if his death were not bad enough, fans were immediately struck with another heart-breaking revelation: Mohammed Abdo, who could be described as the Kingdom’s Frank Sinatra and is himself a........

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