Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
Badr Shakir al Sayyab ( ar, بدر شاكر السياب) (December 24, 1926 in Jaykur, near Basra – December 24, 1964 in Kuwait) was a leading Iraqi poet, well known throughout the Arab world and one of the most influential Arab poets of all ti ...
,
Shathel Taqa
Shathel Taqa, (in Arabic:شاذل طاقة 28 April 1929 – 20 October 1974), an Iraqi poet, diplomat and politician. He is one of the pioneer founders of the School of Modern Arabic Poetry, which emerged in Iraq in the late 1940s and early 19 ...
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
Shathel Taqa
Shathel Taqa, (in Arabic:شاذل طاقة 28 April 1929 – 20 October 1974), an Iraqi poet, diplomat and politician. He is one of the pioneer founders of the School of Modern Arabic Poetry, which emerged in Iraq in the late 1940s and early 19 ...
and Abd al-Wahhab Al-Bayyati and was also involved in politics from an early age. At that time, his work was heavily influenced by his
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
and
pan-Arab
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
sympathies but has since also taken a more introspective, lyrical turn. He has also translated many well-known writers into Arabic, including Oktay Rifat,
Melih Cevdet Anday
Melih Cevdet Anday (13 March 1915 – 28 November 2002) was a Turkish writer whose poetry stands outside the traditional literary movements. He also wrote in many other genres which, over six and a half decades, included eleven collections of p ...
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
and
Constantine Cavafy
Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Πέτρου Καβάφης ; April 29 (April 17, OS), 1863 – April 29, 1933), known, especially in English, as Constantine P. Cavafy and often published as C. P. Cavafy (), was a Gree ...
. Following his exile from Iraq, Youssef has lived in many countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, France, Greece, Cyprus, and resided in London until his death.
In 2004, the
Al Owais Prize The Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Awards (or Al Owais Awards; ar, جائزة سلطان بن علي العويس) are a biannual prize for literary and cultural achievement in the Arab world.PEN World Voices The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is an annual week-long literary festival held in New York City and Los Angeles. The festival was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts and was launched in 2005. The fe ...
festival where he was interviewed by the
Wild River Review
''Wild River Review'' is an online magazine that seeks to raise awareness and compassion as well as inspire engagement through the power of stories. In a climate of repeated media flashes and quick newsbyte stories, Wild River Review curates, edits ...
. In 2014, Youssef's poems were forbidden from being included in the Kurdish school curriculum by the
Kurdistan Regional Government
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) ( ku, حکوومەتی هەرێمی کوردستان, ''Hikûmetî Herêmî Kurdistan'') is the official executive body of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.
The cabinet is selected by the m ...
over a certain poem in which he referred to Kurdistan as "Qardistan," which loosely translates to "Monkey-istan."
English bibliography
Published volumes
*''Without an Alphabet, Without a Face: Selected Poems,'' translated by Khaled Mattawa ( Graywolf, 2002). .
*''Nostalgia, My Enemy'', translated by Sinan Antoon and Peter Money (Graywolf, 2012). .
In anthology
*''Literature from the "Axis of Evil''": ''Writing from Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Other Enemy Nations,'' edited by
Words without Borders
''Words Without Borders'' (''WWB'') is an international magazine open to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world's best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers. The ...
(
The New Press
The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André SchiffrinReza Aslan ( Norton, 2010). .
*''Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology'', edited by Melissa Tuckey (University of Georgia Press, 2018). .
Further reading
* Huri, Yair. ''The Poetry of Sa’di Yûsuf: Between Homeland and Exile.'' (Sussex, 2006). .
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...
Al-Ahram
''Al-Ahram'' ( ar, الأهرام; ''The Pyramids''), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after '' al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majori ...