Mahmoud al-Abbas is a Saudi Arabian writer and literary critic. He has published four books of essays on prose poetry and modernism in literature.
Luay Hamza Abbas was born in 1965 in Basra, Iraq. He has a PhD from Basra University (2002), where he teaches literary criticism. He has published his works in literary magazines such as Nizwa, Akhbar al-Adab, and Thaqafat. He has three collection of short stories (1997, 2000, and 2003)... [read more] [top]
Yasser Abd el-Hafez was born in Cairo in 1969. He graduated in Law from Ain Shams University. He started work as a journalist when he was 18, and worked with Akhbar al-Adab since it started. On the Occasion of Life is his first novel.
Ibtisam Abdallah is an Iraqi novelist, short-story writer and literary translator. Her latest novel is Mesopotamia (Baghdad, 2001). Among her translations into Arabic is J M Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.
Hassan Abdallah biodata coming soon
Mahmoud Abdel Ghani was born in 1967 in Khraibka, Morocco. He is studying for a PhD in autobiography in early Arabic literature. In 1999 he published his first collection of poems.
Salah Abdel Latif was born in Baghdad in 1950. He has published two collections of short stories (1984 and 1993). In 2000 he published a novel, Nujoum Adamiyya [Human Stars] in Tangiers. He left Iraq in 1975, spending four years teaching in Algeria and Morocco. Since 1979 he has lived and worked in Köln, Germany. He founded the cultural magazine... [read more] [top]
Yasser Abdel Latif was born in Cairo in1969. He graduated from Cairo University in Philosophy in 1994. He has one collection of poetry (Naas wa Ahjar,1995). He wrote several scripts for TV documentaries. In 2005 he was awarded the Sawiris Prize for his debut novel Qanoon al-Wiratha, excerpted in Banipal No... [read more] [top]
Marie-Therese Abdel Massih is Professor of English & Comparative Literature at the University of Cairo. She studied at the Universities of Cairo, Essex, and Madrid, and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Kent. In addition to her own works, she has published a number of translations of creative... [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Abdel Meguid was born in Alexandria in 1946. He is one of Egypt’s most respected and well-known of authors. Soon after completing a BA in philosophy at Alexandria University in 1973, he published his first novel, and soon took up the position of Consultant for Cultural Matters at the Popular Culture Council. He has authored many novels and short stories,... [read more] [top]
Mahmood Abdel Wahab was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1929. While still at school he wrote a play The Miserable. In 1954 he published the short story, The Train Heading up to Baghdad, in the Lebanese magazine Al-Adab, which established his reputation as a writer. In 1997 he published his first collection of stories The Aroma of Winter, which was... [read more] [top]
Ashraf Abdelshafy was born on 29 July 1969 in El-Minya, Egypt. He has a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Cairo University. He has published one collection of short stories, and his first novel is in press. He works as a journalist in... [read more] [top]
Noel Abdulahad 1939–2007
Noel Abdulahad was born in Bethlehem, and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. He was a poet, critic and translator from Arabic, and particularly enjoyed translating poetry. He was immensely supportive of Banipal, working enthusiastically on translating poets for the early issues of the magazine, from Syria, Morocco and Jordan.... [read more] [top]
Luay Abdulilah LUAY ABDULILAH was born in Baghdad in 1949. He graduated in Mathematics from Baghdad University. A regular contributor of literary criticism and short stories to several Arabic magazines and newspapers. He has published two collections of short stories, Al-Aboor ila al-Dhifa al-Ukhra [Crossing to the Other Bank], 1992, and Ahlam... [read more] [top]
Kareem Abed a poet and short story writer, was born in Iraq in 1952. After leaving Iraq in 1979, he lived in Beirut and Damascus. He has lived in London since 1995 and has published three poetry collections, three collections of short stories and a book of... [read more] [top]
Hoda Ablan was born in 1971 in Eb, Yemen. In 1993 she obtained a Masters degree in Political Science from Sana’a University. She has read her poems in several poetry festivals. She has published three collections, her first in 1989 in Damascus.
Hamdy Abowgliel was born in 1968 into a Bedouin family in Egypt. He has published two volumes of short stories, Asrab al-Naml [Swarms of Bees] in 1997, and Ashya’ Matwiyya bi-‘Anaya Fa’iqa [Items Folded with Great Care] in 2000, for which he has received three literary awards, and one non-fiction work. Thieves in... [read more] [top]
Nazih Abu Afach was born in Syria in 1946 in Homs. He is a poet and painter and has published 13 collections of poetry, the first in 1968 and the latest [The Bible of the Blind] in 2003. Some of his work has been translated into several languages. He works as a chief editor for the monthly magazine... [read more] [top]
Rasmi Abu Ali was born in 1937 in al-Malha, Jerusalem. His first collection of short stories, Qit Maqsous al-Sharibain Ismahu Rayyis [Cat with Clipped Whiskers called Rayyis], 1980, was highly acclaimed, and with the magazine Rassif 81 he founded in 1981 that published marginal writings, set the cat among the literary pigeons. He has two collections of... [read more] [top]
Kamal Abu Deeb is holder of the Chair of Arabic at the University of London. In addition to many books on literature and literary criticism he has published three volumes, the last of which, Adhabat al-Mutanabbi fi Suhbat Kamal Abu-Deeb wa al-'Aks bi al-'Aks, was published by Al-Saqi Books,... [read more] [top]
Nabil Abu Hamad is an painter, political cartoonist and caricaturist, with a weekly cartoon in Al-Hayat newspaper. He was born in the small Palestinian village of Kafr Yasif of a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother. After 1948 the whole family moved to Lebanon, where he studied law, literature and art, starting work on Lebanese newspapers as a... [read more] [top]
Jamal Abu Hamdan was born in 1944 in Jabal Al-Arab, Syria, while the family was moving from Lebanon to Jordan. He has studied in Amman, Cairo and Beirut and has won many prizes for his short stories and his plays that have been performed in all Arab countries. He has published five collections of short stories, five plays, two novels and a novel for children.
Mahmoud Abu Hashhash was born in the al-Fawar refugee camp, Hebron, in 1971. He has a degree in English language and literature from Birzeit University. In 1999 he published poems in an anthology, Poets from Palestine, and in 2001 his first collection, Waja’a al-Zujaj [Pain of the Glass]. He lives and works in Ramallah.
SAMER ABU HAWWASH was born in Beirut in 1972 to a family of Palestinian refugees. Since 1991 he has published poetry and articles in various Lebanese newspapers and magazines.He graduated in 1996 from the Lebanese University of Journalism and Communication. He has published two collections of his own poetry and works as a arts journalist for... [read more] [top]
Fawziyya Abu Khalid was born in Riyadh in 1959. She has BAs from universities in Lebanon and the USA, and an MA from King Saud University, where she lectures in Sociology. She has published three books of poetry.
Atef Abu Saif was born in 1973 in Jabaliya refugee camp, Gaza. He has a degree in English literature and a diploma in translation from Birzeit University, 1996, and an MA in European Studies from Bradford University, 1999. He has published three novels, one collection of short stories and a play entitled Mr. Perfect.
Emad Abu Saleh was born in a village in the Egyptian Delta in December 1967. He has lived and worked in Cairo since 1990, presently as a journalist on Al-Wafd. He has seven collections of poetry, the last entitled extreme beauty (2005). He only publishes and limited editions of his books from his own pocket; they are not for sale. He distances himself... [read more] [top]
Rashad Abu Shawar was born in 1942 in Thikreen in Palestine. He is a novelist, short story writer and journalist. Since 1970 he has published seven collections of short stories, six novels, four books of essays, two children’s books and one play. Some have been translated into several languages, including one novel into Russian and a short story collection... [read more] [top]
Zuhayr Abu Shayeb was born in Amman. He has published two collections of poetry in 1986 and 1987. He lives and works in Amman as art director of Muassassah al-Arabiyya al-Dirassat... [read more] [top]
Zuleikha Abu-Risha has published her poetry in several literary magazines and has three collections, the first 1998. She studied at Exeter University, UK. Her book of autobiographical essays, Ghajarul ma’a (Cairo, 1999), was written between London, Exeter and Amsterdam “on trains and aeroplanes”.
Amira Abul Husn was born in Qamishli, Syria, in 1959. She studied business for two years befpre eaving college to devote heself to her poetry. She has two published poetry collections, with a third in press.... [read more] [top]
Mohammed Achaari is a Moroccan poet and was born in 1951 in Moulay Driss Zerhoun. He graduated in law in 1975 from Mohammed V University, Rabat. He started his literary life with a short story, “Waiting for the Death of the Father” in 1967. Since 1978 he has published six collections of poetry, one novel and one collection of short stories. During... [read more] [top]
Majid Addam was born in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1972, and graduated from the Baghdad Institute of Technology in 1993. He published his first volume of poetry in 1999, which was followed the same year by a second in a very limited edition of 20 copies. He moved to Jordan in 2000, and in 2003 settled in New Zealand.
Yassin Adnan was born in 1970 in Safi, Morocco. In 1991 he published, with poet Saad Sarhane, a literary magazine Aswat Muassira [Contemporary Voices], later with Saad Sarhane, Taha Adnan and Rashid Nini the magazine al-Gharah al-Shiriya [Poetic Attack]. He teaches English in a high school. He holds the prizes of Moufdi Zakaria (Algeria,... [read more] [top]
Etel Adnan is a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and painter. She studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne and at the universities of Berkeley and Harvard, and taught Philosophy in San Rafael, California. She travels widely for readings, lectures and exhibitions of her paintings. A bilingual poet and writer, she writes mainly in English.
* Adonis was born Ali Ahmad Said in Kassabeen, Syria, in 1930, and adopted the name Adonis when he was 17. He co-founded Sh’ir poetry magazine and later formed Muwaqaf. He is an internationally renowned poet, essayist, and theoretician of... [read more] [top]
Mamdouh Adwan (d. 2005) was born in Hama, Syria in 1941. A prolific writer, poet, playwright and critic, he published his first collection of poetry, al-Dhul al-Akhdhar [The Green Shadow] in 1967 and since then 17 further collections. He also published two novels, twenty-four plays, translated twenty-three books from English, including the Iliad, the... [read more] [top]
Mofleh al-Adwan is a short story writer, born in Jordan in 1966. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from Jordan University. He has three collections of short stories, a book of essays, two plays and several prose texts. He was a writer for Jordanian television and his plays have been performed in Lebanon and Egypt. No... [read more] [top]
Ibrahim Ahmad was born in Iraq in 1946. He graduated in Law from Baghdad University. He is a well-known short story writer and has published eight collections, the first [20 Very Short Stories] in Baghdad in 1976. With the publication of his second, Zuhoor fi Yad al-Mumya’ [Flowers in the Hands of the Mummy], in 1981, he became highly... [read more] [top]
Younis al-Akhzami is a short story writer from Oman. He has published two collections, An-’atheer (1992) and Habs an-'Nawras (1996).... [read more] [top]
Ahmed Alaidy was born in 1974, studied marketing at Cairo University, and has worked as a scriptwriter on quiz shows and for the cinema, and as a writer of satirical stories for young people and a book designer. Currently he writes a political comic strip for an Egyptian weekly. Alaidy has participated in international writers’ programs at Iowa... [read more] [top]
Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, translator, critic and scholar. He teaches at Queens College and is former chair of Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures; he is on the Medieval Studies and Comparative Literature faculty at the CUNY Graduate Centre. He has been a regular contributor to the... [read more] [top]
Muniam Alfaker was born in Iraq in 1953. He left in 1979 and lived in Beirut and Damascus before settling in Copenhagen. He has published many collections of poetry since 1983. Much of his poetry has been translated into Danish, with two collections published in French.... [read more] [top]
Ghazi Algosaibi is a Saudi poet, essayist and critic, and government minister, well known in the Arab world in the worlds of academia, politics and diplomacy. He has published over 20 works in Arabic including poetry, essays, prose meditations and a novel. He has been Ambassador of the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in London.... [read more] [top]
Nagat Ali was born in Cairo. She graduated from Ain Shams University in literature and is currently preparing an MA on irony in the short stories of Yusuf Idris. She has two collections of poetry, and a number of poems published in the Arab literary press. She works at the Supreme Council for Culture on the National Translation Project.
Taha Muhammad Ali is a native of Saffuriyah, near Nazareth. He was 17 when the Saffuriyans were forced out of their village by the Jewish army in July 1948. The village was later levelled to the ground in January of 1949, like some 400 other Palestinian villages. Taha and members of his family fled to Lebanon, but later found refuge in Nazareth. He started... [read more] [top]
Marwan Ali was born in 1968 in Qamishle, Syria. He started publishing poetry in 1999 in Arab quarterlies and newspapers. His poems are collected as Yesterday’s Water, but not yet published. He lives between Germany and Holland.
Fatma Yousif al-Ali was born in 1953 in Kuwait. She is a journalist and short story writer. She has a BA in Arabic Literature from Cairo University and an MA in literary criticism on “the movement of society in the Kuwaiti short story”. She was the first Kuwait woman... [read more] [top]
Nadiah Alkokabany was born in Tazz, Yemen, and graduated with an MA in Architecture from Sana’a University in 2000. She has won three literary prizes for young writers including, in 2001, the President of the Republic award for young writers. She is a member of many groups and in particular a committee campaigning for an end to violence against women. She... [read more] [top]
Roger Allen is Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He has written and published many books and essays on Arabic literature and has translated many modern Arabic narratives. He is a contributing editor of... [read more] [top]
Taleb Alrefai was born in 1958 in Kuwait. He works for Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts, & Letters, and edits Jaridat Al-Fonoon, a monthly arts tabloid. He has published four collections of short stories and two novels, Shade of the Sun (Dar Al-Sharqiyyat, Cairo, 1998) and Samar's Words (Dar al-Mada, Damascus... [read more] [top]
Salih J Altoma was born in Iraq. He is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, USA, and has been associated with the university since 1964. He was its director of Middle Eastern Studies (1986-1991) and chair of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department (1985-1991).
He has published works in Arabic and... [read more] [top]
Mohammad Hassan Alwan was born in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia in 1979. He has two novels (see Banipal 26 for a review of Sophia) and a collection of short... [read more] [top]
Jaber Alwan Jaber Alwan was born in Babylon, Iraq, in 1948 in 1970 from the Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad. In 1972 he arrived in “the city of his dreams”, Rome, with only $100 in his pocket and started painting, like many artists, in the famous Piazza Navona.
In 1975 he gained a diploma degree in Sculpture from the Rome Academy of... [read more] [top]
Suzanne Alwayan was born in 1974 in Beirut. She has a degree in journalism and media studies from the American University in Cairo. She lives in Beirut. ... [read more] [top]
Nora Amin was born in Cairo, where she lives and works. She studied Cinema before turning to writing and has published a short story collection and a novel.... [read more] [top]
Mohammed al-Amiry was born in al-Qulaiat, Jordan River Valley, in 1961. He is a poet and a fine artist. He has published four collections of poetry and two books on fine arts. He is head of the Jordanian Fine Arts Association.
Piers Amodia translates from Arabic and Italian into English. He spent eight years in the merchant navy before going to Edinburgh University to study Arabic. He lived briefly in Cairo teaching Italian before moving to Rome where he works as a translator for the... [read more] [top]
Ziad al-Anany was born in Naour, Jordan, in 1962. Since 1988 he has published four collections of... [read more] [top]
is a poet, novelist, translator and filmmaker. He was born in Baghdad in 1967 and moved to the USA after the 1991 Gulf War.
He did his graduate studies at Georgetown and Harvard and has a PhD in Arabic literature from the latter. His poetry and articles (Arabic & English) have appeared in various journals and publications.
Thomas Aplin was born in England in 1979. He has a first class degree in BA Arabic from the University of Exeter and an MSc in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies from Edinburgh, where he is currently pursuing a PhD on the Gulf... [read more] [top]
Tarek el-Ariss teaches contemporary Middle Eastern culture and literature, media, film, and Arabic and European intellectual history at New York University. He has a BA in Philosophy (AUB, 1994), an MA in Film Studies (University of Rochester, 1997), and a PhD in Comparative Literature (Cornell University,... [read more] [top]
Known as Arrar, Mustapha Wahbi al-Tal (1899-1949) is considered one of the most popular poets in Jordan. His social criticism and defense of human rights exposed him many times to exile and imprisonment.
Yusef Habshi al-Ashqar (1922-1992) was born in Bayt Shabab, Lebanon. Author of several novels and collections of short stories, he is considered by many as one of the greatest of modern Arab writers.
Waiel Ashry is an Egyptian writer and translator who currently resides in New York City where he studies Arabic literature at NYU. His first collection of stories Sa’am New York [New York Spleen] was published in Cairo in 2005.
Ibrahim Aslan was born in Cairo in 1936. He is a leading Egyptian novelist and short story writer. His first short story was published in 1963 and his first collection, Buhayrat al-Masah [The Evening Lake], in 1972. His second collection, Youssef wal-Rida’ [Joseph and the Clothes], was published in 1987.
Zeinab Assaf is a young poet from Lebanon. She works as a literary critic and book reviewer for An-Nahar daily newspaper, and is editor-in-chief of the newly-established magazine Naqd... [read more] [top]
Alaa Al-Aswany was born in 1957 and educated at the Lycée Français in Cairo, Cairo University, and the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is a prolific writer of short stories, novels, literary essays, and articles on social and political issues. His second novel is the best-selling The Yacoubian Building (Arabic 2002, English translation... [read more] [top]
Seema Atalla was born in New York, completed high school in Amman, Jordan, and now lives in Southern California. In 1992 she obtained an MA in Comparative Literature from UCLA. She is an accomplished poet and translator. Her translations have appeared in the journals Mediterraneans, Passport, Prairie Schooner, Painted Bride Quarterly, Banipal... [read more] [top]
Majed Atef was born in Ramallah, Palestine, in 1972. He has three collections of short stories. He is studying Arabic language and literature at the Open University of Jerusalem, is married with two children, and earns his living typesetting and editing from home.
Akl Awit is a poet, critic, journalist and university professor, born in Lebanon in 1952. He has published nine poetry collections and holds a PhD in modern Arabic literature.
He is the editorial director of An-Nahar newspaper’s cultural supplement in Beirut, and teaches literary journalism and prose poetry at Saint Joseph... [read more] [top]
Ali Azeriah was born in Morocco. He holds an MA in Translation and Linguistics from the University of Bath, UK, and a PhD in comparative literature and translation studies from SUNY-Binghamton, NY (USA). He taught translation and translation theory at King Fahd Advanced School of Translation, Tangiers, Morocco before his recent retirement. He is a regular... [read more] [top]
Aziz Azrhai was born in Casablanca in 1965. He worked as a journalist in the nineties, is a member of the House of Poetry in Morocco and has published two collections of poetry and biography of Moroccan author Idris el-Khoury. He works presently as a consultant for the Moroccan Minister of Education and Youth.... [read more] [top]
(1927-1967)
She was a pioneering Palestinian writer, publishing five novels and numerous short stories in her short life.... [read more] [top]
Fadhil al-Azzawi FADHIL AL-AZZAWI was born in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, in 1940. He has a BA in English Literature from Baghdad University and a PhD in Journalism from Leipzig University. He edited literary magazines and newspapers in Iraq and abroad and has been publishing his poetry since the 1960s. He has published many volumes of poetry, six novels, one... [read more] [top]
Saleh al-Azzaz worked for many years as a journalist in Riyadh where he lived, then became a television documentary filmmaker and well-known photographer. Banipal’s feature The Novel in Saudi Arabia in No 20 included pictures from The Blue Impossible, a book of photographs and poems he made in collaboration with Bahraini poet Qassim... [read more] [top]
Ali Bader was born in Baghdad in 1964. He has a degree from Baghdad University in Western Philosophy and French Literature. He has published three novels, with two more under print. His first, Papa Sartre, (pub. Beirut 2001, and reviewed in Banipal No 17, Summer 2003) was awarded the State Prize for Literature in Baghdad and the Prize of... [read more] [top]
Hesham Bahari is the author of two novels in the Swedish language, and the publisher of Alhambra Förlag in Sweden. He settled there in 1976, and after studying Linguistics at Lund University, began, with his Swedish wife, to translate the two Arabic works he had... [read more] [top]
Basheer al-Baker was born in Al-Hassaka, Syria, in 1956. He has been publishing his poetry in several Arab literary magazines. In 1995, he published his first collection of poems Qanadeel ila Rassif Oroppi (Dar al-Jadid, Beirut). Since 1985, he has lived and worked in Paris. For a number of years he edited the weekly newspaper, Bareed al-Janoub. ... [read more] [top]
Salwa Bakr was born in Cairo in 1949. In the early1980 she was a film and theatre critic for Arabic-language newspapers and magazines and from 1985 concentrated on her own writings. She has published seven collections... [read more] [top]
Shimon Ballas was born in Baghdad in 1930 and immigrated to Israel in 1951. A major novelist, he has published more than fifteen works of fiction, including Outcast, excerpted in Banipal No 21, a unique chronicle of Iraqi history, in addition to several important studies on contemporary Arabic literature, and numerous translations from Arabic. His... [read more] [top]
Latifa Baqa was born in Sale, Morocco. She has one collection of short stories Ma allathi nafalahu? [What Do We Do?], published by the Moroccan Union of Writers when she won their Award for Best Young Writer of 1992. She is the author of several short story collections published by Anwal and the Union of the Writers of Morocco.
Hoda Barakat is a highly regarded and acclaimed novelist. She was born in 1952 and brought up in Bsharré, Lebanon, the birthplace of Gibran Kahlil Gibran. She studied French literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, graduating in 1975 at the start of the civil war. She stayed on through the war working as a teacher and journalist,... [read more] [top]
Salim Barakat is of Kurdish origin, born in 1951 in Qamishli, Syria, where he was brought up and spent most of his adult life. He has explored his own Kurdish culture as well as the Arabic, Assyrian, Armenian, Circassian and Yazidi ones. In 1970 he went to Damascus to study Arabic Literature but after one year he moved to Beirut where he stayed until 1982,... [read more] [top]
Najwa Barakat was born in 1960 in Beirut, studied theatre and film. She lives in Paris as a journalist, working for a number of Lebanese newspapers and international radio stations. She has published four novels in Arabic and one in French translation.
Ahmed Barakat (1964-1994)
was born in Casablanca. In 1977 he started publishing his poetry in Moroccan and other Arab newspapers. He published two collections of poems before his untimely death in 1994.... [read more] [top]
Halim Barakat was born in 1933 into a Greek-Orthodox Arab family in Kafroun, Syria. A novelist and short story writer, he has degrees from the American University in Beirut, and Michigan, and is presently Research Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.... [read more] [top]
Mourid Barghouti is a prominent and celebrated Palestinian poet and has spent most of his life in exile. Born in 1944 in the village of Deir Ghassaneh near Ramallah, he graduated from Cairo University in 1967. He has been published throughout the Middle East and lives and works in Cairo. His collected works were published in Beirut in 1997, and in the same... [read more] [top]
Iman Bassir is a novelist and playwright, with a nursing degree from Ramallah. Her play Haffat al-Abed ( Edge of Eternity), published by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture, won the first prize for Women’s Creation for the theatre. In 2000, it was read at the... [read more] [top]
Raouf Mousaad Basta RAOUF MOUSAAD BASTA was born in 1937 in Sudan. He studied journalism in Cairo and joined a left-wing organisation. He was imprisoned for several years, after which he left Egypt to study theatre direction in Poland at Theatre Laboratory of Jerzy Grotowski. In 1982 he rediscovered Cairo, where he founded the Shouhdy publishing house. Today he... [read more] [top]
Issa Batarseh is a poet of Jordanian origin who lives in California. He has published two collections of poetry.
Abdel Wahab al-Bayati 1926-1999
He was a pioneering Iraqi poet, who together with Badr Shakir al-Sayyab and Nazik al-Malaika broke the boundaries of poetic form to establish Arabic free verse. He was born in Baghdad, and published his first poetry collection in 1950, the year he graduated in Arabic Language and... [read more] [top]
Faraj Bayraqdar was born in 1951 in the village of Tir near Homs, central Syria. He published two collections of poetry, You Are Not Alone (Beirut, 1979), and Golsorkhi (1981), before his arrest in 1987 for his political affiliations and imprisonment without trial until 1993 when he was sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labour for belonging... [read more] [top]
Said el-Baz is a Moroccan poet and translator who lives in Agadir. He is one of the new important voices in Morocco. He has many collections still in manuscript, unpublished including one entitled Agadir by... [read more] [top]
Chawki Bazih was born in 1951 in southern Lebanon. He studied Arabic language and literature at the Lebanese University, Beirut, and from 1973 to 1989 worked as a teacher, since then in the Ministry of Information. In 1972 he was awarded a prize for his poetry. He has published 11 poetry collections, among them The Rose of Sorrow, Epic of Dust,... [read more] [top]
Youssef Bazzi is a young poet and journalist, well-known in Beirut. He has four poetry collections, and has been awarded the Yousef al-Khal Poetry Prize. In 2005, his fast-paced narrative Yasser Arafat Looked at me and Smiled describing the inveigling horrors of civil war and militiia life, was published in Arabic and English (translated by Rasha... [read more] [top]
Taher Bekri is a Tunisian poet and writer born in 1951. He writes in both French and Arabic and his poetry has been translated into several languages. He lives in France and lectures at the University of Nanterre, Paris.
Anthea Bell was born in Suffolk and educated at Somerville College, Oxford. She has been a translator from French and German for many years. Her translations include works of non-fiction, literary and popular fiction, and many children’s books, including from the German a number of works by classic authors, and from the French (with Derek Hockridge) the... [read more] [top]
Mohammed al-Belushi is an Omani short story writer who was born in Qurayyat, Oman, in 1970. His short stories have appeared in several Arab newspapers and literary magazines. He has published one collection, Maryam (1992). He is co-author (with Samir Hanna) of a book, Caves of Oman, published by Sultan Qaboos University in 1996.
Together with Naguib Mahfouz Tahar Ben Jelloun is probably the most translated Arab writer, the most read and studied in the world.
To the numerous studies and university theses, critical essays, meditative coverage, has just been added the inclusion of his novel L’Enfant de sable [The Sand Child] in the school... [read more] [top]
Hassan Ben Othman was born in 1959 in Sqalba, Tunisia. He is a novelist, short story writer, and editor-in-chief of Al-Hayat Al-Thaqafa [Cultural Life] magazine in Tunisia. He published two short story collections, two novels and several non-fiction works. No... [read more] [top]
Abdelkader Benali was born in Ighazzazen, Morocco in 1975 and moved to Rotterdam when he was four years old to join his father who was working there. He spoke Berber but soon started to write successfully in Dutch, winning several literary competitions. He studied history in Leiden and now lives in Amsterdam. Acclaim for Benali's work followed rapidly, with... [read more] [top]
Widad Benmoussa was born in Ksar el-Kebir Morocco, en 1969. Her first poetry collection, was published in Rabat in 2001, establishing her as a poet to watch. Her second collection, Between Two Clouds, was published by Marsam, Rabat in 2006. She is a member of the Board of the House of Poetry in... [read more] [top]
is a poet born in Fès, Morocco, in 1948. His first collection of poems was published in 1960 and to date he has eleven collections. He loved poetry from an early age. He studied philosophy in Fès, and since 1980 has taught in the Faculty of Philosophy in Rabat.
In 1971 he founded the avant-garde... [read more] [top]
Mohammed Bentalha was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1950. From 1979 to 1981 he was general secretary of the Union of Writers. He was one of the co-founders of the House of Poetry in Morocco, and, in 1999, co-founded the League of Writers of Morocco. He has published three collections of poems. He is at present Professor of Literature and Chair of the Department of... [read more] [top]
Mohammed Berrada was born in 1939 in Rabat, Morocco, and grew up in Fez. He graduated in Arabic Literature from Cairo University and has a PhD from the Sorbonne. He was a founder member of the Union of Moroccan Writers and its president three times. He is Professor of Arabic Literature at Mohammad V University, Rabat. He has written many works on Arabic literature... [read more] [top]
Abbas Beydoun was born in Tyre, Lebanon in 1945. He graduated in Arabic Literature from the Lebanese University, Beirut.
He has eight collections of poetry and one novel. His work has been translated into several European languages, including selected poems in Italian, a volume in German translation, his epic poem Tyre in French, and a... [read more] [top]
Mohamed el-Bisatie was born and brought up in the Nile Delta and now lives in Cairo. Since 1968 he has published six volumes of short stories and five novellas.
A collection of his short stories translated by Denys Johnson-Davies was published in the mid-1990s – A Last Glass of Tea and Other Stories, and in 2003 AUC Press published... [read more] [top]
Haifa Bitar is a Syrian author and ophthalmologist, living in Lattakia, Syria. She has published 11 collections of short stories and 9 novels. She contributes essays to several Arab magazines.
Faraj Bou al-Isha was born in Libya in 1956. He worked as a primary school teacher, later a journalist and writer. He published his first collection of poetry in 1987, then two in Cyprus (1992 and 1993). He lives in Germany as a political refugee, and writes for the Arab newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
Kader Boubekri is a poet born in Algeria in 1943. He has published his poetry in several Arab magazines. He lives in Paris.
Rachid Boudjedra was born in 1941 in Ain-Beide, Algeria. He spent his early childhood there before moving to Tunisia. In 1963 he began studying Philosophy at the University of Algiers and completed his studies at the Sorbonne in 1966. He published his first and immediately acclaimed novel La Répudiation in 1969, thus beginning a successful career... [read more] [top]
Siham Bouhlal was born in 1966 in Casablanca, Morocco. She has a PhD in literature from the University Paris-Sorbonne, and translates to French medieval Arabic texts and contemporary Arabic poetry. She has one collection of her own poems, Poèmes bleus (Tarabuste,... [read more] [top]
Rachid Boujedra was born in 1941 in Ain-Beide, Algeria. He spent his early childhood there before moving to Tunisia. In 1963 he began studying Philosophy at the University of Algiers and completed his studies at the Sorbonne in 1966. He published his first and immediately acclaimed novel La RÈpudiation in 1969, thus beginning a successful career as... [read more] [top]
Issa J. Boullata is a writer, literary scholar and critic, an educator and translator, who was born in Jerusalem. He started his academic career with a PhD in Arabic literature from London University in 1969. He is formerly Professor of Arabic Literature at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. During his career he has authored several books, including Trends... [read more] [top]
Sargon Boulus passed away on Monday morning, 22 October 2007, in hospital in Berlin. Many of this friends knew that he had been very ill, but in the summer of 2007 he had recovered enough to come to Europe and read his poems at poetry festivals in Lodeve and Rotterdam.
We reproduce below the... [read more] [top]
Ahmed Bouzfour was born in 1945 in Taza, Morocco. He studied Arabic Literature and lectures at the College of Literature and Humanities in Casablanca, where he lives. He has published five collections of short stories and a book of essays on pre-Islamic poetry.
Mahmoud al-Braikan was a highly regarded poet, and was born in al-Zubair, southern Iraq. He studied law at Baghdad University in the 1940s. From 1953 to 1959 he was a teacher in Kuwait, then returned to Baghdad and completed his law studies in 1964. He taught Arabic language and literature at Basra’s Teachers’ Training College until his retirement in the... [read more] [top]
Rima Buaini was born in Syria in 1971. She has a BA in English (Damascus University) and later studied theatre criticism at the Higher Institute for Dramatic Arts. She started writing in 2001, publishing some of her work on literary websites. She currently lives and works in... [read more] [top]
Paul Chaoul born in Beirut in 1942, is a poet, playwright, literary critic and foremost translator of French poetry and plays. One of the country’s most prominent social critics and champion of freedom of expression, he co-founded the transient party “the Lebanese Movement of the Conscience”.
At the heart of his poetry is his... [read more] [top]
Mehdi Charef was born in Algeria in 1952 and moved to France in 1964. Following the success of his first novel, Tea in the Harem (1983), he directed a film of the book with Costa Gavras. His second novel was Le Harki de Meriem (1989) and his third La Maison d’Alexina (1999).
Rachida al-Charni is a Tunisian short story writer and has published her stories in newspapers, magazines and in two collections.
was born in Algiers in 1951. His mother bought him a guitar at the age of ten and he learned to play the Beatles, the Stones, and Jimi Hendrix – everything that was forbidden by the regime. Playing in nightclubs and studying literature soon became his focus. When Islamic terrorism appeared in Algeria in the 1990s, he began to receive... [read more] [top]
(15 July 1935 – 15 November 2003)
Mohamed Choukri, one of Morocco’s great contemporary writers, died November 2003 of cancer. He was 64 years old. As a child in Tangiers he scavenged for food in garbage bins, but on the day of his death his loss was felt deeply across the Arab world. He had become such a renowned figure that... [read more] [top]
Elliott Colla graduated from UC Berkeley in 1989 where he also completed his PhD in Comparative Literature (2000). He is director of Middle East Studies at Brown University and Professor of Comparative Literature. Among his translations are Gold Dust by Ibrahim al-Koni, Poor by Idris Ali and Ibrahim Aslan’s The Heron, all AUC... [read more] [top]
3 November 1913 – 22 June 2008
Egyptian novelist Albert Cossery lived in Paris for over 60 years. He has published seven novels in French and was winner of the Francophone Prize for Literature. His work has been translated into many other languages but, unfortunately, very little into English. His first... [read more] [top]
Charbel Dagher biodata coming soon.
Rachid al-Daif is a Lebanese novelist and poet who lives between Beirut where he teaches Arabic at the Lebanese University and his family home in a mountain village. His novel Azizi Sayid Kawabata has been translated into eight European languages and he is considered a vibrant and innovative voice among modern Arab novelists.... [read more] [top]
Hassan Daoud is a novelist and journalist born in Beirut in 1950, where he lives and works. He has published five novels, the first The House of Mathilde was excerpted in Banipal No 4, 1999, translated by Peter Theroux, and published by Granta Books later that year (now out of print). He is cultural editor of Al-Mustaqbal newspaper... [read more] [top]
Faisal Darraj is a Palestinian literary critic who has lived between Damascus and Amman. He is one of the major critics in the Arab cultural world, publishing several books on literary theory and criticism, including, in 1996, Bo’s Al-Thaqafa fi al-Mu’asasah al-Falestiniyeh [The Misery of Culture in Palestinian Establishment]. He is a regular... [read more] [top]
Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in al-Barweh, Palestine, and grew up under Israeli occupation to become the world’s best-known Palestinian poet. He published his first collection of poetry in 1960 and his latest, the nineteenth, in February 2000. In 1981, he started the literary quarterly Al-Karmel, which he still edits, now in Ramallah, where he lives. In... [read more] [top]
Humphrey Davies I studied Arabic at Cambridge (1965-8), where I took a 1st, and at the American University in Cairo's Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (1968-69). After working in publishing in the Middle East and later (1972-5), in Cairo, on the preparation of the Hinds-Badawi Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic, I went to the US, where I completed a... [read more] [top]
Lukman Derky was born in Derbassiya, Syria, in 1966. He was a member of Aleppo University’s literary circle in the 1980s. He has published six collections of poetry and one of short stories. He has worked for television and theatre as writer, actor, author, also writing in Syrian and Arabic newspapers, with a daily column in Baladna, a Syrian... [read more] [top]
Nasser al-Dhaheri writer and journalist, was born in 1960 in Al-Ain, UAE. He has published three collections of short stories, one novel, and co-edited with Badr Abdel Malik a two-volume anthology of short stories from the Gulf.
Saleh Diab was born in 1967 in Aleppo, Syria. He went to live in France in 2000. He has an MA in “Women Arab Poets after Nazik al-Malaika” from the University of Paris VIII and is currently working for a PhD on “The Prose Poem in Contemporary Arabic Poetry”.
He is a poet and literary critic, and has published his... [read more] [top]
(1920-2003) was writer born in Tlemcen, Algeria. He was partly schooled in Oudja, just across the frontier in Morocco. He began writing poems and painting at an early age. During the 1940s he worked as a teacher, accountant, interpreter (English/French) and designer. He worked as a journalist on
Mohammed Ali Shams Al-Din biodata coming soon.
Muhi al-din Lazikani was born in Syria in 1951 and studied literature in Syria and Egypt. He settled in London in 1981 and has a daily column in As-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper. He has published three collections of poetry, a play and a volume of literary criticism.... [read more] [top]
Osama Dinassouri
1960 – 4 January 2007
OSAMA DINASSOURI was born 1960 in a small village in Kafr el Shaikh, Egypt. He moved to Alexandria where he obtained his BA in marine biology. He published four collections of poetry: Harashif al-Gahm (1991), Mithl Zi'bin A'maa (1996),... [read more] [top]
was born in 1948 in Saudi Arabia, and is a poet, novelist and activist for human rights. He was for several years cultural editor of the Saudi Al-Yawm newspaper and has published four collections of poetry and one novel.
Lutfiya Dulaimi was born in Diyala, Iraq. She has published ten books of fiction, five plays and three books of essays. She has translated four books from English into Arabic. She lives now in Paris, after moving from Baghdad.
was born in Cairo of Sudanese parents. He studied in Ain Shams University, Cairo, until 1981. Since 1984 he has lived in Vienna where he met his wife Ursula. He taught her Arabic and she now translates his work into German. He has a PhD in the Transfer of Ethics through Technology from the University of Vienna. ... [read more] [top]
was born on 15 May 1973. She has a BA in Communication – Radio and Television, Cairo University, and is studying for an MA . She works as a presenter for al-Arab Radio and Television (ART) and is a film critic. She has one collection of short stories (2004) and one novel Istiqalat Malik al-Mawt [The Resignation of the King of... [read more] [top]
Mansoura Ez-Eldin was born in 1976 in a small village in Delta Egypt, and graduated in journalism from Cairo University in 1998. She started publishing her short stories in the Arab press when she was just 21, and a collection Dhaw’a Muhtaz [Shaken Light] was published in Cairo in 2001. She has worked in Egyptian... [read more] [top]
Hartmut Faehndrich was born in Tübingen, Germany, in 1944, and in 1972 moved to Switzerland, where he still lives. He studied Comparative Literature and Islamic Studies in Germany and the USA. Since the mid-’80s he has been translating contemporary Arabic literature and in 2008 achieved the publication of his fiftieth literary translation – novels... [read more] [top]
Ahmad al-Fagih is a Libyan author and playwright. In 1965, at the age of 22, he was awarded a prize for his first book of short stories. He has worked in many capacities in the fields of culture and the media. He has a PhD in Arabic Literature from the University of Edinburgh. Some of his work has been translated into English; the plays Gazelles... [read more] [top]
Jawdat Fakhreddine Jawdat Fakhreddine was born in 1953 in southern Lebanon. He has published seven collections of poetry, the first in 1979. Some of these collections are: Awham Rifiyya, 1980 (Rural Illusion), Manaraton lil Ghariq, 1996 (A Beacon for the Drowning), Samawat, 2002 (Skies). He is professor of Arabic... [read more] [top]
was born in September 1967 in Mansourah, Egypt and spent a good part of his childhood in Oman. He has a BA in Business Administration (1991). Since then he has worked as a journalist, and is currently with Al-Ahram newspaper. His fiction has... [read more] [top]
Mohammed Ali Farhat is a Lebanese poet born in Beirut in 1945. He graduated from the Lebanese University and has an MA in Philosophy. He was arts editor of As-Safir newspaper in Beirut, Al-Wasat magazine, London, Al-Hayat newspaper, London and is now Ideas Section editor at Al-Hayat. He has two collections of poems and three books published in Beirut and Cairo.
Elias Farkouh was born in Amman in 1948. A novelist and short story writer, he has published six short story collections, the first in 1987, and two novels in 1987 and 1996.
Farkouh’s stories were first collected in Al-Saf'a (The Slap, 1978). This was followed by Tuyour Amman Tuhalliq Munkhafida (Amman's... [read more] [top]
Ghaib Tu‘ma Farman stands out among other Iraqi writers as the novelist who has contributed most to the advancement of the Iraqi novel during the 20th century in two respects: its artistic development or refinement and the authentic representation of Iraq’s socio-political life between the 1940s and 1970s.
What is especially remarkable and perhaps... [read more] [top]
Tamer Fathy is 25 years old and studying English literature at Alexandria University. Working in his parents’ clothing and dry cleaning shop, he started noticing, and then researching the lives of clothes. His debut collection of poetry is written from the clothes’ point of view.
Emad Fouad was born in Al-Farouniya village in the Egyptian Delta in 1974. He studied journalism at Cairo University and continues his studies at Gent University, Belgium. He has published two collections of poetry, (some poems translated into Dutch, French, English). He writes for several Arab newspapers and magazines. (See his poems in Banipal No... [read more] [top]
Bassam K Frangieh is a professor of Arabic language and literature at Claremont McKenna College, California. He taught at several universities including Yale and Georgetown. His books include An Introduction to Modern Arab Culture (forthcoming) and Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and Thought from Pre-Islamic Times to the Present. He has... [read more] [top]
Hamdy el-Gazzar was born on 1 October 1970, in Giza, Cairo. He has a degree from Cairo University in Philosophy (1996). Since 1990 he has published several short stories and articles in the Arabic press, as well as writing and directing three plays. He is presently director of the research department of the Cairean Culture TV channel. Sehrun Aswad [Black... [read more] [top]
Zahir al-Ghafri was born in 1956 in Oman. He is part of the avant-garde prose poetry movement in Oman. Following studies in Baghdad and Rabat, and in 1982 a BA in Philosophy, al-Ghafri published several volumes of verse including Azlaf bayda’ [White Hooves] Paris, 1985, al-Samt ya’ti li al-I ‘tiraf [Silence Comes to Confess],... [read more] [top]
Duna Ghali was born in 1963 in Basra, Iraq. She graduated from the college of Agriculture, Basra University in 1987 and since 1992 has lived in Denmark.
She has published two collections of short stories and one novel and also translations of Danish works into Arabic, including selections of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytales in 2005.
Nujum al-Ghanim is a poet from the United Arab Emirates. She has published three collections of... [read more] [top]
Hashem Gharaibeh is a novelist and short story writer and has published a number of books. He lives and works in... [read more] [top]
Gamal el-Ghitani was born in Sohag, Upper Egypt, in 1945. A novelist, short-story writer and journalist who wrote his first story at the age of fourteen. El-Ghitani is currently editor of the influential literary Cairo weekly Akhbar al-Adab. He is author of nine novels, including the post-modern historical and allegorical novel Al-Zayni Barakat... [read more] [top]
Anwar al-Ghoussani was born in Iraq in 1937 and worked there as a teacher, calligrapher and journalist. He studied Journalism in Leipzig and Berlin and is currently Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Costa Rica. He started writing poetry in... [read more] [top]
Mai Ghoussoub 2 November 1952 – 17 February 2007
The sudden and untimely death of Mai Ghoussoub shocked the arts and literary worlds.
Mai was such an icon of life, of creative force and imagination. She was always daring, always humanistic and caring in her words, her actions and her art, always there,... [read more] [top]
Ferial Ghouzoul is Iraqi, living in Cairo, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the American University of Cairo. She has published extensively in English, Arabic and French on medieval and Third World literature and literary theory, and is editor of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. Author of Saadi Youssef (1989) and Nocturnal Poetics: The... [read more] [top]
Mohammed al-Ghozzi was born in Kairouan, Tunisia, in 1949. Poet, critic and professor at Tunis University, he has published three collections of... [read more] [top]
Camilo Gomez-Rivas is writing a doctoral thesis on Islamic law and society in the Maghreb at Yale University. He is a regular contributor to... [read more] [top]
Nabil Naum Gorgy was born in Cairo and studied Civil Engineering at Cairo University. He later worked as a soil engineer in and around New York. Since returning to Cairo in 1979, he has devoted himself to writing. He writes his novels and short stories in Arabic and his work has been translated into English, French, Swedish, and other languages.
Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 1951 he founded the Turia group of writers opposed to Franco and in 1956 he moved to Paris. He has written several novels, essays and two volumes of autobiography. He lives in Marrakesh and... [read more] [top]
Eskander Habache was born in Beirut in 1963. He is a poet, and journalist with As-Safir newspaper. He has published five collections of poetry and a book of essays, also selected poems in French translation. He has translated several works of poetry and fiction, including poems of Octavio Paz, Jack Spicer, 55 Haiko poems about War: Poets from Croatia, and works of... [read more] [top]
Huzamah Habayeb is a Palestinian author and journalist. She was born in Kuwait, graduating from Kuwait University in English language and literature. She worked there as a journalist until 1990 and the Gulf War, when she was forced to leave. She settled in Jordan, establishing her reputation as a short story writer. In 1992 she published her first collection and... [read more] [top]
JOUMANA HADDAD was born in 1970 in Beirut, Lebanon, where she lives and works. A poet and translator, and speaking seven languages, Joumana is chief editor of the cultural pages of the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, for whom she has interviewed many international writers such as Umberto Eco, Wole Soyinka, and Paul Auster. In April 2006 she... [read more] [top]
Qassim Haddad is a Bahraini poet, well known throughout the Arab world. His first collection was published in 1970 and to date he has published more than sixteen books in Beirut, London, Bahrain, Morocco and Kuwait, including Majnun Laila, a book of poetry and paintings with... [read more] [top]
Mayselun Hadi was born in 1954 in Baghdad. She graduated in Management and Economics from Baghdad University. Since her first collection of short stories Al-Shakhs al-Thalith [The Third Person] in 1980 she has published four further collections, three novels and ten children’s science fiction and adventure books. Her novel Al-Ayoun al-Sood... [read more] [top]
Subhi Hadidi was born in Qamishle, Syria, 1951. A critic, editorialist, and translator, he writes extensively on contemporary Arab poetry. His several translations include Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Yasunari Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain, and Edward Said’s ‘Afterwards’ in Orientalism. He lives in... [read more] [top]
Jad El-Hage was born in Beirut in 1946. He is a poet, novelist and playwright, and published his first creative works, poems, in newspapers in 1966. He has worked as a journalist since he was sixteen, and also a book editor and radio broadcaster in Beirut, Paris (Radio Monte Carlo), Athens (Harlequin Arab World), London (BBC World Service) and Sydney.
Ounsi el-Hage (Unsi al-Hajj) was born in 1937 in Lebanon. He lives in Beirut and is editor-in-chief of An-Nahar daily newspaper. He was a co-founder of Shi’r poetry magazine. He has translated much surrealist literature into Arabic, notably André Breton and Antonin Arnaud, and has published many collections of his own poetry.
Haidar Haidar was born in 1936 in the small village of Husain-al Bahr near Tartus in Syria. He is one of the most distinguished Arab writers today. Through his work he has decried the abuses of tyranny and the lack of freedom, democracy and social justice in the Arab world and broken deep-rooted taboos by exploring forbidden themes. In the 1960’s he began... [read more] [top]
was born in 1955 in Sûr (Tyre), Lebanon. He has a Diploma of Advanced Study in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. He was cultural editor on the Lebanese newspapers An-Nahar and [read more] [top]
was born in 1965 in Casablanca. He studied in Sale and now teaches Translation in Meknès. He published his first collection of poems in 1997.... [read more] [top]
18 December 1923 – 18 December 1989
Ghalib Halasa was born near Madaba in Jordan. He lived in Beirut as a teenager and went on to live in Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus, writing seven novels and a collection of short stories considered among the best of modern Arab literature. He contributed regularly to newspapers.
Kadhim al-Hallaq was born in Basra, Iraq, 1959. He qualified as an archivist in Baghdad, 1985. He has one collection of short stories (Damascus, 1997). In 2000, he was granted the Hellman-Hammett Award for persecuted... [read more] [top]
Janan Jassim Hallawi was born in old Basra city in 1956. He studied electric engineering. He published his first collection of stories in Baghdad,1981. Since 1991 he has published four collections of stories, one of poetry and two novels. He lives in Sweden.
Turki al-Hamad is a well-known Saudi author of a number of books of fiction and essays, and a former university lecturer. His trilogy of novels Adama, Shumaisi and Karadib became a bestseller in the Arab world. He lives in Riyadh.
Salah al-Hamdani was born in Iraq where he was imprisoned for his opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime. He began to write, around the age of twenty, when he was a political prisoner. He has lived in exile in France since 1975.
He has authored collections of poetry and narratives published in both Arabic and French. He has also appeared on the stage... [read more] [top]
Abd El-Din Hamrouch was born in 1964 in Casablanca, Morocco. In 1991 he received his diploma from the College of Literature and Humanities in Rabat. He has one collection of poems, published in 1993.
Tony Hanania was born in Beirut in 1964. He was brought up in Lebanon and educated at Winchester and the Warburg Institute. He published his first novel, Homesick, in 1997 (now being made into a film), and his second, Unreal City, also highly acclaimed, in 1999. He lives in London.
Nathalie Handal is a Palestinian-American living in Boston, USA. She is a writer, poet and literary researcher and travels... [read more] [top]
Mohammad al-Harthi was born in al-Mudhayrib, Oman, in 1962. He has a degree in Geology and Marine Sciences. His first poetry collection came out in 1992, and since then three more. He writes on travel in Arab newspapers, and his book Ain wa Janah [Eye and Wing] will be published in Abu Dhabi, late 2004.
Salah Hasan was born in Babel, Iraq, in 1960. He studied theatre at the Academy of Fine Art, Baghdad, leaving Iraq in 1992. He has published several collections of poetry, including four for children, and written plays, staged in Holland and elsewhere. He lives in Amsterdam.... [read more] [top]
Mohammed Hashem Egyptian writer and publisher Mohammed Hashem, who established his independent publishing house Dar Merit in Cairo in 1998, has been awarded the 2006 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award by the Association of American Publishers’ International Freedom to Publish (IFTP) Committee. It will be presented at the PEN American Center... [read more] [top]
Paula Haydar is a lecturer of Arabic Language at the University of Arkansas, and has a Masters degree in Translation. She has published translations of two novels by Lebanese author Elias Khoury (University of Minnesota Press) and a third, The Kingdom of Strangers (University of Arkansas), for which she was awarded the American Translators’ Award for... [read more] [top]
Mahdi Haydar is the nom-de-plume of the author of Alaam Saddam Hussein, excerpted in translation in Banipal No 24, pages 22-31. The real identity of the author has not been revealed.... [read more] [top]
Buland al-Haydari (1929-1996) was born in north Iraq on September 26, 1926, moving to Baghdad as a boy. He started writing poetry in Kurdish and then turned to Arabic. Involved in left-wing politics, he was jailed in 1963 and put under a death sentence, only his reputation as a poet saving his life. He then lived in Lebanon until 1976 when he returned to Baghdad.... [read more] [top]
Ghenwa Hayek was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She received a BA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut, an MA in Twentieth Century Literature from Leeds University and is currently a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at Brown University. She currently lives in Beirut, where she is teaching at AUB and doing dissertation... [read more] [top]
Ghenwa Hayek was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She received a BA in English Literature from the American University of Beirut, an MA in Twentieth Century Literature from Leeds University, UK, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at Brown University, USA. She currently lives in Beirut, where she is teaching at AUB and doing dissertation... [read more] [top]
Jalil Heidar was born in Baghdad in 1945. He has worked on newspapers in Baghdad, Damascus and Cyprus. He left Iraq in 1979 and now lives in Malmo, Sweden. He has published seven collections of... [read more] [top]
Zeinab Hifni was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In 1987 she started working as a journalist, and for five years wrote a weekly column in the daily Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. She has published four volumes of fiction
Bensalim Himmich was born in Meknès, Morocco in 1949. He has published six novels, four collections of poetry, and books of essays and literary criticism. Majnun al-Hukm won the Riad El-Rayyes Prize for the Novel in 1989. He won the Great Atlas Prize for his novel Al-’Alaama [The Learned One] whose French edition was published in... [read more] [top]
Ala Hlehel was born in Jesh, Galilee, in 1974. He has a diploma in scriptwriting from the Tel Aviv School of Screenwriting and a degree in Communications and Fine Art from Haifa University. He has worked as an editor in radio and print journalism. He was a radio presenter working in Haifa, where he was until recently editor-in-chief of Al-Madina... [read more] [top]
Mohammed A. al-Hussaini was born in Amouda, Syria, in 1957, into a Kurdish family. He has published three collections of poems and a novel. He has lived in Sweden since 1989.
Jabbar Yassin Hussein was born in 1954 in Baghdad. He left Iraq in 1976 and since then has lived in France where he began writing short stories, poems, novels and essays in an attempt to recall what he had left behind. In Poitiers, he organised a poetry festival for several years. Since 1991, six of his Arabic books have been published in French, the latest short... [read more] [top]
Hadiyya Hussein was born in Baghdad. She has four collections of short stories, (pub. Baghdad 1993 & 1998, Amman 2002, and Sharjah 1999, the latter winning the Sharjah Women Writers’ Prize) and two novels (Amman 2001, 2003).... [read more] [top]
William M Hutchins is the principal translator of the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy. He is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Appalachian State University. Among his other translations are Mohammed al-Khudayyir’s Basrayatha: Portrait of a City and Fadhil al-Azzawi’s The Last of The Angels (both 2007).... [read more] [top]
1925 – 2008
Lebanese intellectual, writer, novelist, translator, lexicographer and publisher Suhail Idriss passed away in Beirut on Tuesday February 19, 2008. Suhail Idriss was the founder of the well-known literary publishing house Dar Al-Adab and the literary monthly Al-Adab, which played a... [read more] [top]
was born in 1956 in al-Kut, Iraq. He left in 1982 and since 1985 has been living in Denmark. Between 1986 and 1994 he published five collections of poetry. In 2002 he published an autobiographical novel Asghi ila Ramadi [
John Irons (born 1942) studied French, German and Dutch at Cambridge University before specialising in Dutch poetry for his PhD. He also holds a Scandinavian degree in English and German. He moved to Scandinavia in 1968 and lives at present in Odense, Denmark. He has been active as a translator for almost 20 years, mostly of works to do with art, culture,... [read more] [top]
was born in Lattakia, Syria in 1963 and is a poet and translator, teaching American literature at Damascus University. He pursued postgraduate studies at New York University with a Fulbright Scholarship and has an MA and a PhD in American literature (1990-96). His publications include four collections of poetry and thirteen translations from... [read more] [top]
Abid Jaafar was born in Baghdad in 1954. he studied Arabic literature in Baghdad University. He published his first short story in 1972. He has two collections of short stories (1994 and 2003). He has lived in London since 1991.
Inaya Jaber JABER is a Lebanese poet and has published six collections of poetry. She works as a journalist on the Lebanese daily paper As-Safir. She has read her poems at festivals in Europe and the Middle East.
Rabee Jaber was born in 1972 in Beirut and studied physics at the American University of Beirut. He is presently editor of Afaaq [Horizons], the weekly cultural supplement of Al-Hayat daily newspaper. Since 1995 he has written nine novels, all much admired by both readers and critics, his latest being Youssef al-Inglizi [Youssef the... [read more] [top]
Yehia Jaber Biodata coming soon
Amal al-Jabouri was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1967. She has a degree in English Literature from Baghdad University. Since 1986 she has published three collections of poetry. She also translates from English into Arabic. She lives in Berlin/Iraq and was editor of Diwan, a bilingual German-Arabic literary... [read more] [top]
Abdel Kader El-Janabi is a poet born in Baghdad in 1944. He settled in France after living in London and Vienna and in 1973, in Paris, he founded the first surrealist Arabic review, Le Désir Libertaire, which was banned in the Arab world. He has published many collections of poetry and essays, translated a number of European and American poets –... [read more] [top]
Hatif Janabi was born in Iraq in 1952. He studied Arabic Literature at Baghdad University. He left Iraq in 1976 to live in Poland, where, on a government scholarship, he earned a Masters Degree in Polish Literature and a PhD in Drama. He now teaches at Warsaw University. He has published seven collections of poems, five of them translated into Polish. A... [read more] [top]
Nouri al-Jarrah is a Syrian poet, born in Damascus in 1956. He lived in Beirut since 1981, then Cyprus and, since 1986, London working as a journalist. He established Al-Katiba [The Woman Writer] literary magazine, publishing 14 issues. Now living in UAE, he is editor of a classic Arabic travel writing series. He has published many collections of... [read more] [top]
Ghassan Jawad is a poet and journalist from southern Lebanon. He lives and works in Beirut.... [read more] [top]
Salma Khadra Jayyusi was born in Palestine in 1928, of a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother. She grew up in Acre and Jerusalem, graduated from the American University of Beirut and from the University of London. She has lived in Spain, Italy, Germany, England, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan and the USA becoming one of the Arab world’s most distinguished... [read more] [top]
Khaled al-Jbaili was born in 1954, in Aleppo, Syria. He graduated from Aleppo University in 1976 with a BA in English Language and Literature, and Diploma in Translation. He has translated many novels and short stories into Arabic, and has worked since 1988 as a translator-reviser at