Abderrahman Achmawi

Education and career

Born in 1956 (1375 AH) in the village of Ara' in the Al-Baha region of south-western Saudi Arabia, he studied at the Faculty of Arabic Language of Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University, graduating in 1977. He went on to earn a master's degree there in 1983, with a thesis on the Islamic current in the work of the writer Ali Ahmad Bakathir, and a doctorate in rhetoric and criticism in 1989 on the artistic structure of the Islamic historical novel. He then made his career in the same faculty, teaching rhetoric and modern criticism.

Poet and speaker

A member of the International League of Islamic Literature, he has taken part in many poetry evenings and literary forums, written for Saudi newspapers and appeared in radio and television programmes, among them Min Dhakirat al-Tarikh al-Islami (From the Memory of Islamic History). His poems frequently address Bosnia, Chechnya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jerusalem. His collections include Sira' ma'a al-Nafs (Struggle with the Self), 'Indama Ya'zif al-Rasas (When the Bullets Play), Ya Ummat al-Islam, Hiya Ummi and Al-Quds Anti (Jerusalem, It Is You). He has also written a few prose works, such as Waqfa ma'a Jurji Zaydan.