When exile is the price of poetry

Iraqi poet, Adnan al-Sayegh (born in 1955) has paid a heavy price for his poetry which denounces the devastation of wars and the horrors of dictatorship, writes Colette Sheridan

He lives in London where he has been in exile since 2004. He was previously in exile in Jordan and the Lebanon.

After being sentenced to death in Iraq in 1996 because of the publication of Uruk’s Anthem, one of the longest poems in the history of Arabic poetry, he took refuge in Sweden. The poem, over 500 pages, expresses the terrible despair emanating from the Iraqi experience.