Iraq

Haifa Zangana

Haifa Zangana was just eight years old in 1958 when Iraqis flooded the streets to celebrate their newfound, hard-won freedom from British colonial rule. She came of age in one of the most open societies…...

Duna Ghali

Born in Basra, Iraq, in 1963, Duna Ghali has lived in Denmark since 1992. In addition to When the Scent Awakens, she has published two collections of short stories, a novel, and translations of Hans Christian…...

Charles Berberian

Philippe Dupuy and Charles Berberian have been collaborating for twenty-five years, with their most successful comic series, Monsieur Jean, selling over 120,000 copies in France. The anthology of their…...

Fadhil al-Azzawi

Fadhil al-Azzawi was born in 1940 in Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. He studied English literature at Baghdad University, earning a B.A. degree, then earned a PhD in cultural journalism at Leipzig University…...

Zakaria Mohammad

Zakaria Mohammad was born in 1951 in the Nablus area. He studied Arabic literature at Baghdad University. In addition to his poetry publications, he published his first novel in 1996 and a collection of…...

Sherko Fatah

Sherko Fatah was born in East Berlin in 1964 to a German mother and an Iraqi Kurd father. Fatah spent part of his childhood in Iraq, where his extended family still lives today. In 1975, he and his parents…...

Salah Al-Hamdani

Salah Al-Hamadani is an Iraqi poet. His poem, "Words," which appears here on Words Without Borders, is taken from the collection Baghdad My Beloved (2003) and it echoes the author's familiar themes…...

Karim Fawzi

Fawzi Karim, born in Baghdad in 1945, is a deeply influential poet of the exiled generation. By the time Karim left Baghdad (for Beirut and later London), his reputation for subversive thought barred him…...

Dunya Mikhail

Born in Iraq in 1965, Dunya Mikhail is famous for her subversive, innovative, and satirical poetry. She has published four collections of poetry in Arabic, including The Psalms of Absence, Diary of a Wave…...

Najem Wali

Najem Wali was born in al-Amara, Iraq, on October 20, 1956, and earned a degree in German literature from Baghdad University in 1978. In 1980 he left Iraq and settled in Hamburg, where he earned…...

Muhsin al-Ramli

Iraqi novelist Muhsin al-Ramli lives in Madrid, Spain, where he is the editor of Alwah, a journal of modern Arabic literature and thought. He is the author of The Happy Nights of Bombing (Cairo, 1993)…...

Badr Shakir as-Sayyab

Badr Shakir as-Sayyab (1926–1964) was a much-censored Iraqi poet who was one of the first Arab poets to break with classical form and was known for his use of the ancient myths of rebirth and recreation…...

Nazik al-Mala’ika

Nazik al-Mala'ika was born in Baghdad in 1923. Both a poet and a literary critic, she has published over fifteen volumes of poetry, prose, and criticism since her diwan appeared in 1947. Her second…...

Nazik al-Malaika

Saadi Youssef

Saadi Youssef was born in 1934 in Basra, Iraq. He has published thirty volumes of poetry, seven books of prose, and has rendered into Arabic major works by such writers as Walt Whitman, Constantine Cavafy,…...

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