Introducing
Translated by Mohammed Hamoud
· Born 1969 in Amara, south Iraq
· BA in Literary Criticism and Playwriting, Academy of Fine Arts, Baghdad, 1992
· Winner of the Abdulwahab Al-Bayati Prize (named after the late great Iraqi poet), 1998, for his poem collection The Displaced, published in the same year by Dar Al-Jundi, Damascus
· In 2000 he published his second collection of pomes The Tramps of Baghdad, published by the Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, Amman and Beirut
· Waiting in Marion, the third collection of poetry, was published by Dar Al-Farabi, Beirut, in late 2007
· Has a number of manuscripts, most significant of which are:
- A fourth collection of poems, Belated Psalms
- A book entitled Dijla Street (An Early Biography of Pain) dealing with the Iraqi people’s uprising of 1991, to be published by Dar Al-Mada
- A third book manuscript, A Necklace of Violets – Essays on Iraqi Theatre Under the Embargo, which is a collection of studies and essays on the Iraqi theatre in the nineties previously published in a number of Iraqi and Arabic newspapers and magazines, to be published as part of the Sabah Newspaper Book of the Month series
· Worked in Iraqi TV and various other Iraqi arts publications in Baghdad, most prominent of which are Alwan, Al-Mawid, Cinema & Stage
Major Iraqi TV contributions:
Wrote and presented The World of Theatre programme, which was broadcast by Iraqi TV throughout 1996 and 1997, and later broadcast by a trial Iraqi satellite station in 1998
Wrote and presented a periodical programme about Iraqi theatre that reported on the activities of Iraqi stage festivals entitled The Festival Newsreel in 1996, 1997 and 1998
Wrote several TV serials, including:
o Vacant Spring, directed by Akram Kamil
o The Safe Shore, directed by Jamal Abd Jassem
o Our Beloved, directed by Akram Kamil
o Breesam’s Memoirs, directed by Abdulwahab Ali
o The Tattoo, a feature film directed by Jamal Abd Jassem
And a number of TV single dramas
Participated in scripting a number of music video clips, mainly with Iraqi directors Fadi Acoub and Faiz Acoub
In the Jordanian capital Amman, he became a founding member of the General Union of Iraqi Writers and Journalists in 2000, and was elected a member of the editorial staff of the Union’s Masalla magazine
Organised a number of poetry evenings in Amman, most prominent of which were in the Jordanian Writers Association, the French Cultural Centre, the Anda Hall, and other participations at the Iraqi Cultural Lounge
Took part as a literary critic in a number of stage festivals held in Amman between 1998 and 2001
Some of his writings were translated into Spanish and English
Residing in Australia since 2002
Editing Defater Culture magazine on the Internet
Personal website:
http://www.abdalkalikkaten.com/
Email addresses: