Nazik al-Mala'ika

Nazik al-Mala'ika was born in Baghdad. She earned an undergraduate degree at the College of Arts in Baghdad and an MA in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lived in Iraq until 1970, when she and her husband and family moved to Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, they moved to Cairo, where she would live for the rest of her life. She was the author of several books of poetry, including The Nights Lover (1945), The Cholera (1947), Shrapnel and Ashes (1949), Bottom of the Wave (1957), Tree of the Moon (1968), and The sea changes its color (1977). Most recently, there has been a collection of translations by Emily Drumsta, titled Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Mala'ika (2021).

Al-Mala'ika is known as the first Arabic poet to use free verse. She taught at many universities, including the the University of Basrah, University of Baghdad, the University of Mosul, and Kuwait University. She died in 2007 at the age of 83.