Hassan Blasim was born in Bagdad, Iraq in 1973. He spent most of his childhood in Kirkuk but returned to the Iraqi capital to attend film school. In 1998 he moved to the Kurdish part of Iraq, where he continued making films, including the feature film »The Wounded Camera«, which
Fadhil Al-Azzawi was born in 1940 in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. He studied English literature at the University of Baghdad and in the 1960s was one of the founders of an avant-garde poetry group dedicated to renewing Iraqi literature in the spirit of modernism which published a manifesto
After studying English language and literature she worked for Iraqi television. She left Iraq in 1997. Today she lives in Berlin and is editor of the literary magazine for Arabian and German poetry »diwan«. Many of her poems have been translated into and published in German. © international literature festival berlin
Ali Bader was born in Baghdad in 1974. He did his military service during the first and second Gulf Wars. He subsequently followed a programme in book studies and restoration at the National Manuscript Archive in Baghdad, alongside studies in French literature at Baghdad University. Bader is a chronicler of
Ahmed Saadawi was born in 1973 in Baghdad and grew up in Sadr City. Saadawi is the author of a volume of poems »The Festival of Bad Music« (2001) as well as the novels »The Beautiful Country« (2004) and »Indeed He Dreams or Dies« (2008). Besides his writing activities, he
Abbas Khider was born in Baghdad in Iraq, in 1973. He was arrested aged nineteen for political reasons and after his release, he fled Iraq. Since 2000 he has been living in Germany and studying literature and philosophy in Munich. Khider has published two collections of poetry and one volume
