Casa Árabe participates in the Salon International de l’Edition et du Livre (SIEL) in Rabat 

Within the framework of the “Encounters with the author” series, writer Abdul Hadi Sadoun will be presenting his work, with a focus on his book “Siempre todavía” (“Always Still”). The event is being held on Wednesday, May 15 at 5:00 p.m. in the Cervantes Institute stand. 

Casa Árabe will be taking part in the Salon International de l’Edition et du Livre (SIEL) in Rabat, along with the city’s Cervantes Institute, in an event organized on May 15 at 5:00 p.m. in the Cervantes Institute stand.

As part of the event “Encounters with the Author,” writer Abdul Hadi Sadoun will be presenting his work, placing an emphasis on the book Siempre todavía. In this book, the Iraqi poet and novelist recreates the classical topic of homo viator: the life of a human being as a journey. A two-part existential crossing: from Baghdad to Soria, with a stopover in Madrid; and from Soria to the interior of the poet himself, possessed by the chimera of wanting to bring time to a standstill in the capital on the Douro River. “I have to remember that something unusual happened in this book which had never happened to me before; for the first time ever, I wrote all of the poems in Spanish, and I had to translate them back into my mother tongue. So what you are looking at is a collection of poems in Spanish written by an Arab.”

The author will be accompanied by fellow writer Alberto Mrteh, a native of Soria who lives in Morocco, to engage in a back-and-forth dialogue on the universe of homo viator. The event will be in Spanish with simultaneous translation into French.

Abdul Hadi Sadoun (Baghdad, Iraq, 1968) is a writer and Hispanist. He is currently a professor of Arabic language and literature at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). He was awarded the Antonio Machado Foundation Scholarship in Soria in 2009. Named a distinguished guest of the city of Salamanca (2016), and received the distinction for “Poets from other worlds” (International Poetry Fund, 2016). He has authored poetry and prose books: Siempre Todavía (Always Forever, 2010), Campos del extraño (Fields of Strange, 2011), Memorias de un perro iraquí (Memoirs of an Iraqi Dog, 2016), Todos escriben sobre el amor menos tú (Everyone Writes About Love But You, 2018), Informe sobre el robo (Report of Theft, 2020), Simple Balance (Sencillo equilibrio, 2018), El jardín del Harén (The Harem Garden, 2022), and País portátil (Handheld Country, 2023). He is also the editor of the following anthologies of Arabic poetry in Spanish: No son versos lo que escribo: Breve antología del canto popular de la mujer iraquí (A Brief Anthology of Iraqi Women’s Popular Song, 2018), Compañeras de Enheduana: Poetas árabes clásicas (Companions of Enheduana: Classical Arab women poets, (2021), and Las Muallaqat: Casidas árabes preislámicas (Muallaqat: Pre-Islamic Arab Casidas, 2022). He has translated into Arabic authors such as Cervantes, Antonio Machado, Lorca, Borges, Alberti, Bécquer, Ángel Guinda and Javier Marías.