Description

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Arab women poets have been around since the earliest of times, yet
their diwans (collected poems) were kept in the shadows.

Spanning more than 5000 years, from the pre-Islamic to the Andalusian
periods, Classical Poems by Arab Women presents rarely seen work by over sixty women writers who boldly refused to be silenced. From sorrowful eulogies to gleeful scorn, this collection offers a rich excursion into the vibrant, exclusively female worlds of pleasure, passion and pain, suppressed for
centuries by religious and political bigotry.

With poems in both English and Arabic, this bespoke gift edition celebrates feminine wit and desire, and pays homage to the significant contribution women have made to Arabic literary tradition.

About the Author

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Abdullah al-Udhari was born in Taiz, Yemen, in 1941. He studiedclassical Arab literature and Sabaean epigraphy at London University, where healso received a doctorate for his pioneering study, Jahili Poetry beforeImru al-Qais (4000 BCE-500 CE), which established him as an authority onearly Jahili literature. A literary historian, poet and storyteller, he is alsothe author of Victims of a Map: A Bilingual Anthology of Arabic Poetry (bySaqi Books), Voice Without Passport, The Arab Creation Myth andModern Poetry of the Arab World.