Pages from the Biography of an Exile

A politically charged, hard-hitting and thought-provoking collection by one of Iraq's best-known poets, Adnan al-Sayegh. Throughout this collection, Adnan explores the exhausting struggle for acceptance after being forced into exile. Seemingly innocent and lyrical at first, yet infused with darker undercurrents and nightmarish imagery. A distinct poetic voice; one which refuses to adjust to the expectations of a society, after being humiliated and shamed by its horrifying dictatorship. Passionate, outspoken and incredibly moving, these poems capture the power and resilience which come with mortality. When at the age of almost forty, and after many years of war, dictatorship and repression, Adnan al-Sayegh left his homeland of Iraq, he embarked on an exile that has thus far lasted for twenty years. Exile opened him to liberty but also further disturbed his sense of being human, and in this strange home between freedom and un-freedom, poetry has become his motherland, mystery and companion. His is a true poetry of migration and displacement, the unrepressed celebration of the surprise of being alive.