Fawzi Karim was born in Baghdad in 1945. He died in London on 16th May 2019. Regarded as one of the major poets in the Arab world, Fawzi Karim was also a Writer, Painter, sculptor, lover of classical music and literary critic.
'Plague Land' 2011, was his first selected poems published in English by Carcanet. Versioned by the Anthony Howell after translations by Abbas Kadhim. Fawzi Karim's second book in English 'Incomprehensible Lesson' was versioned by Anthony Howell 2019 and also published by Carcanet. Both books were the Poetry Book Society recommendation.
Fawzi Karim’s poetry has been translated into many languages, including French, Sweden and Italian.
Fawzi Karim was also a Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Al-lahda AlShi’ria (Poetry Moments) Quarterly literary magazine 1993-94.
'The Ivory Tower', his column on poetry and European classical music has appeared in a number of influential Arabic newspapers and is respected for its emphasis on the transcendent value of art and culture.
"Fawzi Karim is one of the most compelling voices of the exiled generation of Iraqi writers. In the first collection of his poetry to appear in English, his long sequence Plague Lands' is an elegy for the life of a lost city, a chronicle of a journey into exile, haunted by the deep history of an ancient civilization. Memories of Baghdad's smoke-filled cafés, its alleys and mulberry-shaded squares, the tang of tea, of coffee beans...arak, napthalene, damp straw mats', are recalled with painful intensity. Karim's defiant humanity, rejecting dogma and polemic, makes him a necessary poet for fractured times. Working closely with the author, the poet Anthony Howell has created versions of Plague Lands' and a selection of Karim's shorter poems. Notes on the poems, Elena Lappin's introduction and an afterword by Marius Kociejowsky exploring Karim's life, illuminate the context of the poetry- CARCANET 'Plague Land and other poems'.
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