Portrait photo of Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

Is a poet from Sudan who writes in Arabic.

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today. He has gained a wide audience in his native Sudan for his imaginative approach to poetry and for the delicacy and emotional frankness of his lyrics. Saddiq was born in 1969 and grew up in Omdurman Khartoum where he still lives. He is the cultural editor of Al-Sudani newspaper.

His first poetry collection Songs of Solitude was published in 1996 (second edition, 1999). He has also published The Sultan's Labyrinth (1996) and The Far Reaches of the Screen... (1999 & 2000); all three collections were published in one volume as Saddiq's collected poems in Cairo in 2009.

One of the six poets taking part in the PTC's first World Poets' Tour in October 2005, Saddiq received a rapturous response from audiences in the UK. In March 2006 he returned to the UK and gave a moving reading at the Poetry Cafe as part of their occasional series 'In Town Tonight' featuring important international poets visiting London. In the autumn of 2006, he was invited to take part in the LitUp festival in Kendal, and he also gave readings in Brighton and at SOAS in London. In 2008 he took part in the second World Poets' Tour.

'Poem of the Nile' was published in The London Review of Books one of the rare occasions the LRB has published poetry translated from Arabic and the first time they've featured the work of an African poet. His poems have also been published in Poetry Review and The Times Literary Supplement. This is a real indication of Saddiq's growing status as an important international poet.

Saddiq's involvement with the PTC stimulated his interest in translation. Back in Sudan, he began an innovative project that involved writers in Arabic from northern Sudan collaborating with writers in English from the south to translate each others' work, a project with enormous political significance in divided Sudan. In 2007, he set up the website Sudanese Ink, a showcase for writers from Sudan and beyond.

Poems we've translated

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