To Pet a Dog In London!

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’s most recent book of poems is Fugitive Atlas (Graywolf Press, 2020). He was born in Benghazi, Libya, and emigrated to the United States as a teenager. He later received his MFA from Indiana University. 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 10/2026)