Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus in 1979 and moved to Sweden in 2008. He writes poetry and has been translated into nearly 30 languages. Currently, he lives between Berlin and Stockholm.
Almadhoun has published five collections of poetry in Arabic, the latest being "Adrenaline" in 2017 and "I Brought You a Severed Hand" in 2024, both published in Arabic by Almutawassit in Milan.
In Sweden, he has been translated and published in two collections: Asylansökan, Ersatz, 2010, which was awarded the Klas de Vylders stipendiefond for immigrant writers. He has also written Till Damaskus, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2014, together with the Swedish poet Marie Silkeberg. which was included in the literary critic list for Best New Books at “Dagens Nyheter”, Sweden's largest newspaper, and made into a radio play for Swedish National Radio.
Almadhoun has also made several poetry films with Silkeberg, and his most recent poetry film, Évian, won the Zebra Award for the best poetry film of 2020.
The Dutch translation of Almadhoun's poetry, Weg van Damascus, (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas) Amsterdam 2014, was one of the top 10 selling poetry books in Belgium for several weeks in 2015 and 2017.
His poetry has been incorporated into the work of numerous artists. American artist Jenny Holzer has projected his poems in major public art projects, including at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, MASS MoCA in Massachusetts, Blenheim Palace in the UK, “For Aarhus” Aarhus, Denmark, "Off-White" Florence, Italy, and "Tutta la Verità" Bergamo, Italy. The musician and artist Blixa Bargeld has also performed readings of Almadhoun’s poetry in Norway and Greece.
In 2017, with the Dutch poet Anne Vegter, he published the poetry collection "ik hier jij daar" (Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas) Amsterdam 2017. The book was also one of Belgium's 10 best-selling poetry books for several weeks in 2017.
Adrenalin a selection of his poems translated into English by Catherine Cobham was published by Action Books, USA, in November 2017.
Adrenalin was on the 2018 BTBA longlist, Best Translated Book Award in the USA, and on the Small Press Distribution list of Poetry Bestsellers for four months - December 2017, January 2018, February 2018 & and January 2019.
"Ein Raubtier namens Mittelmeer" a selection of poems by Almadhoun translated into German by Larissa was published in February 2018 by (Arche Literatur Verlag AG) Zurich / Hamburg.
The book was ranked number 1 on the "Litprom-Bestenliste / Sommer 2018" list for the best books translated into German.
Almadhoun was awarded the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program scholarship (Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) 2019 / 2020.
In 2022/2023, Almadhoun curated and edited the German poetry anthology Kontinentaldrift – Das Arabische Europa, which included 31 Arabic poets living in Europe, translated it into German and published it bilingually in German and Arabic with a long foreword on Arabic poetry. The anthology was published in Germany in September 2023, by Verlag das Wunderhorn in collaboration with the Haus für Poesie in Berlin.
His book I Have Brought You a Severed Hand was published in English translation in 2025 by Action Books (U.S.) and Divided Publishing (London and Brussels). The German translation, Ich habe dir eine abgetrennte Hand gebracht, published in 2025 by Karl Rauch Verlag, Düsseldorf. The book has also appeared in Dutch (Jurgen Maas, Amsterdam), and most recently, Ars et Vita in Brazil published Você deu em pagamento o meu país, a selection of Almadhoun’s poems in Portuguese.
Publications:
شهر هر چقدر بزرگ تر می شود اتاق من تنگ تر می شود
(Translated into Persian from Arabic by Yadollah Goodarzi) Tehran – Nasher Saless Publishing House, 2025
Você deu em pagamento o meu país
(Translated into Portuguese by Alexandre Chareti), Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Ars et Vita, 2025
Ich habe dir eine abgetrennte Hand gebracht
(Translated into German by Larissa Bender) – Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch Verlag, 2025
I Brought You a Severed Hand
(Translated into English by Catherine Cobham) – London & Brussels: Divided Publishing 2025
I Brought You a Severed Hand
(Translated into English by Catherine Cobham) – USA: Action Books 2025
ניסיתי לתרגם לך את המלחמה
(Translated into Hebrew by Daniel Behar) – Jerusalem: Maktoob
Ik heb een afgehakte hand voor je meegenomen
(Translated into Dutch by Djûke Poppinga) – Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas (March) 2024
لقد أحضرتُ لكِ يداً مقطوعة
Milano: Almutawassit (February) 2024
Das Arabische Europa “Kontinentaldrift”
(Poetry anthology, curated & edited by Ghayath Almadhoun) – Berlin: Verlag Das Wunderhorn GmbH & Haus für Poesie 2023
Adrenalina
(Translated into Italian by Jolanda Guardi) – Milano: Edizioni Centro Studi Ilà® 2021
Adrenalin
(Poetry selection translated into Bengali by Manos Chakraborty) – West Bengal, India 2019
آدرنالین
(Translated into Persian by Sara Rahmati) – Iran: Nashre Markaz 2019
Ein Raubtier namens Mittelmeer
(Translated into German by Larissa Bender) – Hamburg: Arche Literatur Verlag AG 2018
Adrenalin
(Translated into English by Catherine Cobham) – USA: Action Books 2017
ik hier jij daar
(with Anne Vegter, Translated into Dutch by Djûke Poppinga) – Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas 2017
أدرينالين
Milano: Almutawassit 2017
Weg van Damascus
(Translated into Dutch by Djûke Poppinga) – Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas 2014
لا أستطيع الحضور
Beirut: Airpbooks 2014
Till Damaskus
(with Marie Silkeberg, Translated into Swedish by Ghayath Almadhoun and Marie Silkeberg) – Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag 2014
Prestolnica
(Translated into Slovenian) – Ljubljana: Studentska Zalozba 2012
Asylansökan
(Poems translated into Swedish) – Stockholm: Ersatz Verlag 2010
كلما اتسعت المدينة ضاقت غرفتي
Published by the Ministry of Culture in Syria on the occasion of Damascus as Capital for Arabic Culture 2008
قصائد سقطت سهوًا
Published by the Arabic Writers Union in Damascus 2004