Abdullah al-Udhari

Read poems by this poet

Abdullah al-Udhari, a literary historian, poet, and translator, was born in Taiz, Yemen, in 1941, and has lived in London since 1962. He studied classical Arab literature and Sabaean epigraphy at University of London, where he also received a doctorate for his pioneering study on Jahili poetry before Imru al-Qais (4000 BCE–500 CE), which established him as an authority on early Jahili literature.

Al-Udhari is the editor and translator of Victims of a Map: A Bilingual Anthology of Arabic Poetry by Adonis, Mahmud Darwish, and Samih al-Qasim (Saqi Books, 2008); Classical Poems by Arab Women (Saqi Books, 1991); and Modern Poetry of the Arab World (Penguin Books, 1986). He is also the author of The Arab Creation Myth (Archangel, 1997) and Voice Without Passport (The Menard Press, 1974). 

In 1974, al-Udhari founded and edited TR, an Anglo-Arab literary and arts magazine.