Adnan Al-Sayegh

Adnan Al-Sayegh, born in Al-Kufa in 1955, is one of the most original voices from the generation of Iraqi poets known as the Eighties Movement. His poetry carries an intense passion for freedom, love and beauty. Adnan uses his words as a weapon to denounce the devastation of war and the horrors of dictatorship. He left his homeland in 1993, lived in Amman and Beirut, then took refuge in Sweden in 1996. Since 2004 he has been living in exile in London.

Adnan is a member of the Iraqi and Arab Writers Unions, the Iraqi and Arab Journalists Unions, the International Journalist Organization, the Swedish Writers Union, the Swedish Pen Club, and English PEN and Exiled Writers Ink.

He has received several international awards; among them, the Hellman-Hammet International Poetry Award (New York 1996), the Rotterdam International Poetry Award (1997) and the Swedish Writers Association Award (2005), and has been invited to read his poems in many festivals across the world.

Let Me Tell You What I Saw, the first dual language English/Arabic translation of large sections of Al-Sayegh's renowned epic poem Uruk's Anthem, is available now (Translated by Jenny Lewis and Ruba Abughaida.)