Sinan Antoon

Sinan Antoon (سنان أنطون), is an Iraqi poet, novelist, scholar, and literary translator.

He has been described as "one of the most acclaimed authors of the Arab world."

Alberto Manguel described him as "one of the great fiction writers of our time.” He is an associate professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University.

Antoon was born in 1967 in Baghdad.

He received his B.A. in English with distinction from the University of Baghdad in 1990 with minors in Arabic and Translation.

He left Iraq in 1991 after the onset of the Gulf War and moved to the United States.

He completed an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University in 1995.

"He was one of a coterie of dissident diasporic Iraqi intellectuals who opposed the 2003 US occupation of his homeland that led to the current post-colonial quagmire."

Antoon was featured in the 2003 documentary film About Baghdad, which he also co-directed and co-produced.

His articles have appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Nation, and in pan-Arab dailies including al-Hayat, al-Akhbar and as-Safir where he writes a weekly opinion column.

His poems and novels have been translated to nine languages.

He is also a co-founder and co-editor of the e-zine Jadaliyya.

In 2006, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

He has published two collections in English;The Baghdad Blues (Harbor Mountain Press, 2006) and Postcards from the Underworld (Seagull Books, 2023).

Antoon has published five novels:

Books

Film

His doctoral dissertation was the first study on the 10th century poet, Ibn al-Hajjaj and the genre of poetry he pioneered (sukhf).

Antoon has published two collections of poetry in Arabic: Laylun Wahidun fi Kull al-Mudun (One Night in All Cities) (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2010) and Kama fi al-Sama (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2020).