Saadi Youssef (1934-2021), born near Basra, Iraq, is considered one of the most important contemporary poetsin the Arab world. Following his time as a political prisoner in Iraq, he spent most of his life in exile, working as a teacher and literary journalist throughout North Africa and the Middle East. He published over forty books of poetry, two novels, a book of short stories, and several books of essays and memoir. Youssef, who spent the last two decades of his life in London, was a leading translator into Arabic of works by Walt Whitman, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Federico García Lorca, and many others. A collection of his selected poems, translated by Khaled Mattawa, was released as Without an Alphabet, Without a Face by Graywolf Press in 2002. (updated 4/2023)