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 stories, Le Lecteur de Baghdad (Atelier du Gué, 2000), being tales of a journey through time, places and faces searching for the impossible return to Iraq.
Contributor's Issues
Banipal No 14 Summer 2002
Banipal No 34 published April 2009
Latest News
06/02/2012At a celebration of literary translation on Monday 6 February at Kings Place, Khaled Mattawa will receive the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.
[read more]03/02/2012
The Mosaic Rooms celebrates theartistic and poetic works of the great Syrian poet Adonis with talks and events from 3-8 February and an exhibition of Adonis's collages from 3 February until 30 March. The opening evening this Friday sees Adonis in conversation with Khaled Mattawa who is the winner of the 2011 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for his translation Adonis: Selected Poems.
[read more]16/01/2012
Khaled Mattawa wins the 2011 Saif Ghobash-Banipal Translation Prize for Adonis:Selected Poems
[read more]12/01/2012
Chair of IPAF Judges Georges Tarabichi announces the shortlist authors of the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
[read more]09/01/2012
Banipal Book Club's first book for discussion is The Tobacco Keeper by Ali Bader.
[read more]08/01/2012
Ibrahim Aslan, one of Egypt's best-loved authors, has died of heart failure at the age of 77.
[read more][read all news stories]