Nazik Al Malaika Statue

Nazik Sadiq Al Malaika (23 August 1923 – 20 June 2007) was a prominent Iraqi poet and one of the most important figures in modern Arabic literature.

She was born in Baghdad into a culturally rich environment her mother was a poet and her father a writer which formed the foundation of her early talent.

Nazik graduated from the Higher Teachers’ Training College in 1944, then joined the Institute of Fine Arts and graduated from the Music Department in 1949.

In 1959, she obtained a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States.

She worked as a professor at the University of Baghdad, then at the University of Basra, and later at Kuwait University.

Nazik Al Malaika, alongside the poet Badr Shakir Al Sayyab, helped establish the Free Verse (shi‘r al taf‘ila) movement in the late 1940s, which marked a major turning point in the course of modern Arabic poetry. Her poetry was characterized by a contemplative, humanistic spirit, and by deep expression of the self, emotion, and social questions.

Nazik lived in Cairo from 1990 in voluntary seclusion until she passed away there on 20 June 2007 at the age of 83 due to acute circulatory failure. She was buried in a private family cemetery west of Cairo.

Today, Nazik Al Malaika is regarded as one of the most influential cultural figures in Iraq and the Arab world, and a cornerstone in the development of modern poetry. She played a key role in shaping literary consciousness and redefining the relationship between poetry, language, and society.