Abd Al-Wahhab Bayati

(also al-Bayati). Born 1926, in Baghdad. Iraqi poet. Born into the family of a merchant. Graduated from a pedagogical institute, where he taught from 1950 to 1954.

Bayati published collections of verses, including Angels and Devils (1950) and Broken Pitchers (1955). He was repressed for his poetry attacking colonialism and the reactionary government of Nuri Said. He emigrated from Iraq in 1955. In Cairo he published the collections Glory to Children and Olives (1956) and Verses in Exile (1958). Twenty Narrative Poems From Berlin (1959) and Immortal Words (1960) contain impressions of the USSR and other socialist countries. He wrote the narrative poem Lenin (1961) and Message to Nazim Hikmet (Beirut, 1956). The theme of the historical and philosophical play Judgment in Nishapur (1963) is the tragedy of a man separated from his motherland. The collection Flame and Words (Beirut, 1964) contains poems on the national liberation war in Algeria. He translated the poems of P. Eluard, L. Aragon, and others into Arabic.