It was a collection of romantic verses that made several startling references to a woman's body, sending shock waves throughout the conservative society in Damascus. While a student in college he wrote his first collection of poems entitled The Brunette Told Me, which he published in 1942. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in law in 1945. He later studied law at Damascus University, which was called Syrian University until 1958. The school was owned and run by his father's friend, Ahmad Munif al-Aidi. Qabbani was raised in Mi'thnah Al-Shahm, one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus and studied at the National Scientific College School in Damascus between 19. His mother, Faiza Akbik, is of Turkish descent. Nizar Qabbani died in London of a heart attack at the age of 75.Nizar Qabbani was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to a middle class merchant family. His second wife, Balqis al-Rawi, an Iraqi teacher whom he had met at a poetry recital in Baghdad, was killed in a bomb attack by pro-Iranian guerrillas in Beirut, where she was working for the cultural section of the Iraqi Ministry. One couplet in particular - "O Sultan, my master, if my clothes are ripped and torn it is because your dogs with claws are allowed to tear me" - is sometimes quoted by Arabs as a kind of wry shorthand for their frustration with life under dictatorship. Qabbani's later poems included a strong strain of anti-authoritarianism. His writing also often fused themes of romantic and political despair. Qabbani was a committed Arab nationalist and in recent years his poetry and other writings, including essays and journalism, had become more political. He had lived in London since 1967 but the Syrian capital remained a powerful presence in his poems, most notably in "The Jasmine Scent of Damascus."Īfter the Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he founded the Nizar Qabbani publishing house in London, and his became a powerful and eloquent voice of lament for Arab causes. Thereafter, he expressed resentment of male chauvinism and often wrote from a woman's viewpoint and advocated social freedoms for women. The suicide of his sister, who was unwilling to marry a man she did not love, had a profound effect on Qabbani. He earned a reputation for daring with the publication in 1954 of his first volume of verse, "Childhood of a Breast," whose erotic and romantic themes broke from the conservative traditions of Arab literature. Through a lifetime of writing, Qabbani made women his main theme and inspiration. His work was featured not only in his two dozen volumes of poetry and in regular contributions to the Arabic-language newspaper Al Hayat, but in lyrics sung by Lebanese and Syrian vocalists who helped popularize his work. Qabbani was revered by generations of Arabs for his sensual and romantic verse.
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