Saadi Simawe

Sa'adi Simawe (born 1946) is an Iraqi American author, teacher and translator, has published many articles in English and Arabic, both original and in translation, and a novel (in Arabic) Al-Khuruj min al-Qumqum, London 1999. He is the editor of an anthology of 40 writers, "Iraqi Poetry Today", published by Zephyr Press in 2003 and author of the work of cultural criticism, "Black Orpheus: Music in African American Fiction from the Harlem Renaissance to Toni Morrison", Garland 2000.

Background

Simawe was born into a middle-class family in Diwaniyah, Iraq, in 1946. While a teenager, he was arrested, imprisoned, and beaten severely for publishing leaflets against the Ba'ath Party. After six years in prison, he was freed in a political amnesty and was allowed to return to school; he completed a BA degree in English at Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. He graduated in June 1976 and left Iraq on a tourist visa; his mother paid a substantial fine, equivalent to approximately a year's income, when he did not return.