Nazik al-Mala'ika

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Nazik Sadiq al-Mala'ika ( Arabic نازك صادق الملائكة, DMG Nāzik Ṣādiq al-Malāʾīka , born August 23, 1922 in Baghdad ; † June 20, 2007 in Cairo ) was an Iraqi poet. She is considered one of the pioneers of modern Arabic poetry.

Life

Nazik al-Mala'ika was born in Baghdad in 1922. She was the only woman to study Arabic language and literature at the Teachers' Training College (دار المعلمين العالية) in Baghdad until 1944 . There she also learned Latin and English, and in 1949 French. In the early fifties she attended Princeton University on short notice with a scholarship . From 1954 she studied comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin – Madison .

After Saddam Hussein came to power in Iraq , she lived in Kuwait from 1970 to 1990, where she worked as a professor at the University of Kuwait. After Saddam occupied the country in 1990, she emigrated to Egypt . In the last years of her life she suffered from Parkinson's . She died on June 20, 2007 in a hospital in Cairo.

Nazik al-Mala'ika was married from 1961 to the university professor Abdel Hadi Mahbooba, who died in 2005. The marriage produced a son.

plant

Already with her first work, the poetry collection A'shiqat Al-Layl ("Lovers of the Night") from 1947, she became internationally known. In her second volume, Shazaya wa ramad (“Spark and Ashes”), published two years later, she distanced herself from the rigid structure of traditional Arabic poetry. Here she took the risk for the first time to break away from the fixed metrical specifications and to propagate the free verse , which she is considered to be a pioneer in the Arab world. In one of the best-known texts in this collection, Nazik al-Mala'ika reflects on the cholera epidemic that broke out in Egypt in autumn 1947. In the course of the 1960s she began to distance herself from the poetry of free rhythm again, which sparked a heated argument with the group over the magazine Shiir ("Poetry"). Nevertheless, she has had a lasting influence on modern Arabic poets such as Adonis and Mahmud Darwisch .

While a total of seven volumes of poetry were published by her until her death, her prose work is less well known. She published a number of short stories (also in Lebanese magazines) , which were republished in 2002 in the two-volume anthology Al-Aamal Al-Nathriya Al-Kamila (Collected Prose). In the 1950s in particular, she also emerged as a women's rights activist and discussed the role of Arab women in patriarchal society in several essays, some of which are viewed as classics of Arab feminism .

Fonts

Original editions (selection)

  • A'shiqat Al-Layl , 1947 (poems)
  • Shazaya wa ramad , 1949 (poems)
  • Al-mar'a baina 'ltarafain, al-salbiyya wa' l-akh-laq , 1953 (essay)
  • Al-tajzi'iyya fi 'l-mujtama' al-Arabi , 1954 (essay)
  • Qarárat al-mawya , 1957 (poems)
  • Qadaya 'l-shi'r al-mu'asir , 1962 (collection of articles)
  • Shaýarat al-qamar , 1968 (poems)
  • Ma'sát al-hayát wa ugniya li-l-insán , 1970 (poems)
  • Yugayyir alwána-hu l-bahr , 1976 (poems)
  • Li-l-salat wa-l-tawra , 1978 (poems)
  • Al-Aamal Al-Nathriya Al-Kamila , 2002 (prose, 2 vols.)

translated into German

  • Suleman Taufiq (Ed.), New Arabic Poetry . German Taschenbuch-Verl., Munich 2004, ISBN 3-423-13262-0 (contains three poems by Nazik al-Mala'ika in German translation as well as a biographical summary of the poet)

literature

  • Salih J. Altoma, Nazik al-Mala'ika's Poetry and its Critical Reception in the West, in: Arab Studies Quarterly , Fall 1997. ( online version here )
  • Aurora Cano Ledesma, Unidad Árabe y Arabidad en la Obra de la Poetisa Názik al-Malá'ika, in: Collatio (Madrid), no. 1, 1998. ( online version here )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mala'ika, Nazik al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mala'ika, Nazik Sadiq al
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Baghdad
DATE OF DEATH June 20, 2007
Place of death Cairo