Event 119 Friday 12 March 8pmAl Ras 3The premature death of Sargon Boulus shocked the whole Arab world. He was fittingly eulogized in the media as one of the best-known and most influential of contemporary Arab poets and young poets held readings in his honour throughout cities in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and the Sudan, among other places.
Born into an Assyrian Iraqi family and growing up in Al-Habbaniyah, Kirkuk and Baghdad, he started publishing his work in 1961 in the groundbreaking Shi'r (poetry) magazine.  In 1969 he left Iraq, crossing borders on foot as he didn’t have a passport, and after a brief spell in Beirut – where he was arrested and deported - he left for the US. He settled in San Francisco and from 1969 becoming an unstoppable translator of English-language modern poets into Arabic and dedicating his life to reading, writing and translating poetry, every so often making forays to Europe to meet up with fellow exiles and perform at festivals. He died in Berlin in October 2007.
This evening his friend and publisher Khalid Al-Maaly will talk about Sargon and festival-goers will have a unique preview of hitherto unseen footage taken by his friend Samuel Shimon who filmed and interviewed him over several years, including on the very last day of his life. The film includes footage of Sargon reading his own poetry and talking about his life.

Moderated by Margaret Obank, publisher & editor of Banipal.

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Permalink: Sargan Boulus (1944-2007) - A Tribute by Khalid Al-Maaly & Samuel Shimon