Freedom

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)

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, Libya, and emigrated to the United States when he was a teenager. He later received his MFA from Indiana University, where he also taught creative writing and received the Academy of American Poets Award. His latest book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf Press, 2020). A MacArthur Fellow, he is the William Wilhartz Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan and editor of Michigan Quarterly Review. (updated 4/2023)