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Poet Mahmud Sobh has passed away

On Monday, February 21, the Palestinian-Spanish professor, poet and translator Mahmud Sobh, the first Arab university professor to obtain a department chair at a university in Spain, passed away in Madrid. Here at Casa Árabe, we mourn his loss and convey our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.

February 21, 2022
MADRID
Born in Safad, in northern Palestine, in February 1936 and a resident of Spain since 1965, Sobh has left us Spaniards and Palestinians a great legacy of works, including poems and studies of the utmost intellectual and poetic depth. He was a bilingual poet and professor of Arab Studies at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and the first Arab university professor to obtain a department chair at a university in Spain.

In 1948, at the age of 12, he was expelled from Palestine with his family by soldiers of the newly established State of Israel. Then becoming a refugee in Syria, his life took a major turn when he accepted a scholarship to come to Spain to do his doctoral thesis on the classical poetry of Al-Andalus in 1965. In 1975, he was given the Alamo Poetry Award, and in 1978 the Vicente Aleixandre Prize. His Spanishlanguage poetry works include his books “Mar Blanco,” “Diván: antes, en, después,” “Libro de las qasidas de Abu Tarék” and “Posesos en Layla.” Among his scholarly works are: “Arab Troubadours of the Mediterranean: Twenty poets of love and pain” and “History of Classical Arabic Literature.”

Mahmud Sobh was proud to be Spanish, though he never ceased to feel Palestinian and Arab to the very core, as well, devoting himself throughout his life to the intellectual fight for his beloved Palestine.

Rest in peace.

Said Alami.
Palestinian writer, poet, translator and journalist.