Ahmad al-Safi al-Najafi (1897 – 27 June 1977) was an Iraqi poet, "a poet of extreme simplicity of style and a poetic diction that often approximates to ordinary speech".[1]
Ahmad al-Safi was born in Najaf to an Iraqi father and a Lebanese mother. From 1920 to 1927 he left Iraq for Iran.[2] He met Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi in 1927, who declared he was proud to have "discovered" him. In 1929, illness drove him to leave Iraq for a milder climate in Syria.[1] In 1933, he left the country again for Lebanon, where he lived until a year before his death.[3] Involved in resistance against the British colonial occupation since the 1920s, he was arrested for his anti-colonial stance in 1941.[4] In 1976 he returned to Iraq, having been wounded in the Lebanese Civil War.[5] He died on the 27 June 1977.[6]
In November 2011 plans were announced to erect a memorial to him in Najaf.[7]
Works edit
- Al-Amwāj [The Waves], 1932
References edit
- ^ a b Jayyusi, Salma Khadra (1977). Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry. BRILL. pp. 193–7. ISBN 978-90-04-04920-8. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ Dorigo, Rosella (2000). Literary innovation in modern Arabic literature: schools and journals : proceedings of the IV Emtar Congress (Venice 21-24 April 1999). Herder. p. 179. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ Dorigo, Rosella (2000). Literary innovation in modern Arabic literature: schools and journals : proceedings of the IV Emtar Congress (Venice 21-24 April 1999). Herder. p. 179. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ R. Rezaei, Al-Safi Al-Najafi and poetry in prison[permanent dead link], Daneshnameh 81 (Summer 2011), pp.81-102
- ^ Centre d'études pour le monde arabe moderne (1988). Arab society, 1978-79: reflections and realities. Dar el-Mashreq. p. 245. ISBN 978-2-7214-5802-5. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
- ^ Library of Congress Name Authority File
- ^ Najaf Plans Memorials for Jawahiri, al-Najafi and Mustafa Jawad, 2 November 2011
  | This article about an Iraqi poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |