Hatif Janabi is an Iraqi

Iraqi people

The Iraqi people or Mesopotamian people are natives or inhabitants of the country of Iraq, known since antiquity as Mesopotamia , with a large diaspora throughout the Arab World, Europe, the Americas, and...

 poet, translator and author. Born near Babylon

Babylon

Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...

 in 1952, he studied Arabic language and literature at Baghdad University. He moved to Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 in 1976 for higher studies, eventually obtaining a masters degree in Polish language and literature and a PhD in drama, both from Warsaw University. He has lived in Poland ever since and now teaches Arabic language and literature at Warsaw University. He has also taught at the University of Tizi Ouzou and Indiana University

Indiana University

Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...

.

Janabi has published several collections of poetry, and his work has been translated into many languages including Polish, English, French, German, Spanish and Russian. A volume of his poems in English translation was published by the University of Arkansas Press

University of Arkansas Press

The University of Arkansas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Arkansas. It was established in 1980, and the press issues an average of twenty titles per year. The press is a member of the Association of American University Presses....

 in 1996 under the title Questions and their Retinue. The translator Khaled Mattawa

Khaled Mattawa

Khaled Mattawa is a Libyan poet, and a renowned Arab-American writer, he is also a leading literary translator, focusing on translating Arabic poetry into English...

 won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award

Arkansas Arabic Translation Award

The Arkansas Arabic Translation Award is a prize given for a notable English translation of a book-length literary work originally written in the Arabic language. The award is administered by the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas...

 for this work.

Janabi is also known as one of the principal translators of Polish literature

Polish literature

Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...

 into the Arabic language. He has translated some of the most important Polish writers, among them Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Mickiewicz

Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...

, Czeslaw Miłosz, Wislawa Szymborska

Wislawa Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska is a Polish poet, essayist and translator. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism...

, Juliusz Słowacki, Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert was an influential Polish poet, essayist, drama writer, author of plays, and moralist. A member of the Polish resistance movement – Home Army during World War II, he is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers...

, Tadeusz Różewicz

Tadeusz Rózewicz

Tadeusz Różewicz is a Polish poet and writer.Różewicz belongs to the first generation born and educated after Poland regained its independence in 1918. His youthful poems were published in 1938...

, Stanisław Grochowiak, Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist.In 1982 he emigrated to Paris, but in 2002 he returned to Poland, and resides in Kraków. His poem "Try To Praise The Mutilated World", printed in The New Yorker, became famous after the 11 September attacks...

, Edward Stachura

Edward Stachura

Edward Stachura was a Polish poet and writer. He rose to prominence in the 1960s, receiving prizes for both poetry and prose. His literary output includes four volumes of poetry, three collections of short stories, two novels, a book of essays, and the final work, Fabula rasa, which is difficult...

, Rafał Wojaczek, Ryszard Kapuściński

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...

 and Leszek Kołakowski.