Ark Hosting
Salah Al-Hamdani An Iraqi/French contemporary poet , actor and playwright for two events
The first is hosted in conjunction with the Oriental Cultural Forum on Wednesday 2nd June in the Poetry Cafe
Al-Hamdani will read his poems in Arabic and in French. He will be accompanied by Dikra Ridha who will read some of his poems in English.
Salah Al-Hamdani was born in 1951 in Baghdad and was imprisoned as a political dissident in the 1970’s where he began writing. Some of his work was published in clandestine journals. He has been living in exile in France for the last three decades where he continued to write in Arabic and in French. In his work, Al-Hamdani opposed Saddam Hussein's government and subsequently the US-led Occupation of Iraq. He is particularly known in France for his poem ‘Baghdad Mon Amour’, ‘Baghdad My Beloved’. He has released more than 25 books in Arabic and in French. He has twice been chosen to be included in the French Poetry Anthology.