Poet from Iraq. Al-Sheikh has been a very active participant in the Arab Union of Writers since 1993, and has published collections of her own poetry as well as editing an anthology of modern Iraqi poetry.
Manal Al-Sheikh is from Nineveh in northern Iraq, and has a degree in English translation from the College of Arts at Mosul University. She has freelanced for a number of local newspapers, as well as the She'riat Magazine in Libya. Al-Sheikh participated in all sessions of the Annual Mosul University Festival of Creativity, as well as in several forums specializing in Iraqi fiction in Baghdad, three consecutive sessions of the Mirbad Festival of Poetry, and the Iqamat Ibdaeiya (Creative Residencies) event in Algeria.
She has published poetry and essays in several Iraqi and international Arabic newspapers. Her first book, "Inhirafut-tawabeet" ("The Deviation of Coffins"), was published by the Iraqi Union of Writers in Nineveh in 1996. In 2007, she edited and published "Umaraur-ruaa" ("Princes of Imaginative Visions"), an anthology of modern Iraqi poetry, and published "Assfar Alo'zlah" ("Books of Seclusion") in Egypt in 2008. A collection of poetic narrative titled "Kadmu Dhaheratin Mukaddada" ("Biting Through a Chopped Moon") is to be published in Syria in 2009, and "Belnokta elhamraa tahta eynhi elyousrah" ("With a red dot under his left eye") is also forthcoming.
Manal Al-Sheikh is currently the ICORN Guest Writer of Stavanger City of
Refuge. You can listen to an interview with Al-Sheikh here, and hear her read her poem Pennylessness here.
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| Manal Alsheikh Aftenposten.pdf | 260.67 KB |
