Nazik Al-Malaika

Nazik Al-Malaika was one of most influential Iraqi female poet. She is famous to be the first Arabic poet to use free verse. She was born in Baghdad in 1922. At the age of 10, she wrote her first poem.

Al-Malaika graduated in 1944 from the College of Arts in Baghdad. Later, she got a Master in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her first book of poetry “Ashiqat al-Layl” (”Night’s Lover”) was published in 1947. “Shazaya wa Ramad” (”Sparks and Ashes”) followed in 1949. Other publications of her were “Qararat al-Mawja” (”Bottom of the Wave”) and “Tree of the Moon”.

Nazik Al-Malaika taught writing at several universities. She left Iraq in 1970 with her family after the rise of the Baath Party. She lived in Kuwait until 1990 when Saddam Hussein invaded that country.

Al-Malaika lived in Cairo for the rest of her life. In 2007, at the age of 84, she died after suffering Parkinson’s disease.