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Nizar Tawfiq Kabbani (21 March 1923 – 30 April 1998) (Arabic:نزار قباني) was a Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, feminism, religion, and Arab nationalism. He is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Family and Early Life 1.2 Education and Diplomatic Career 1.3 His Poetry's Significant Influences 1.4 Marriage and Family 1.5 Late Life & Death 2 Bibliography 3 External links

He was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus to the prestigious Syrian family of Kabbani. He was raised in Mi'thnah Al-Shahm, one of the neighborhoods of Old Damascus. He had four siblings; three brothers and one sister. Mu'taz, Rashid, Sabah, and Haifa, respectively. Sabah was the most famous after Nizar, becoming director of Syrian radio and TV in 1960 and in becoming Syria's ambassador to the United States in the 1980s.

Nizar Kabbani's father, Tawfiq, was Syrian while his mother was of Turkish descent. His father had a chocolate factory; he also helped support fighters resisting the French mandate of Syria and was imprisoned many times for his views, greatly affecting the upbring of Nizar into a revolutionary in his own right. Nizar's great uncle, Abu-Khalil Al-Qabbani, was one of the leading innovators in Arab dramatic literature.

Kabbani studied at the National Scientific College School in Damascus. It was owned and run by his father's friend, Ahmad Munif al-Aidi. He later on moved to study Law at the Damascus University, which was called Syrian University up until 1958. He graduated with a degree in 1945. While a student in college he wrote his first collection of poems entitled "Kalat Liya al-Samraa" (The Dark Skinned Said to Me). It was a collection of romantic verse that made several startling references to a women's body, sending shockwaves throughout conservative society in Damascus. To make it more bearable Nizar showed it to Munir al-Ajlani, the minister of education who was also, a friend of his father and a leading nationalist leader in Syria. Ajlani liked the poems and endorsed them by writing the preface for Nizar's first book.

After law school, Nizar worked for the Syrian Foreign Ministry, serving as consult or cultural attache in several capital cities, including Beirut, Cairo, Istanbul, Madrid, and London. In 1959, when the United Arab Republic was formed, Kabbani was appointed Vice-Secretary of the UAR for its embassies in China. He wrote extensively during these years and his poems from China were some of his finest. He continued to work in the diplomatic field until he tendered his resignation in 1966. By that time, he established a publishing house in Beirut, which carried his name.

When Kabbani was 15, his sister, who was 25 at the time, committed suicide because she could not marry the man she loved. During her funeral he decided to fight the social conditions he saw as causing her death. When asked whether he was a revolutionary, the poet answered: "Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body of with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy". He is known as one of the most feminist and progressive intellectuals of his time.

The city of Damascus remained a powerful muse in his poetry, most notably in the "Jasmine Scent of Damascus". The 1967 Arab defeat also influenced his poetry and his lament for the Arab cause. The defeat marked a qualitative shift in Kabbani's work-- from erotic love poems to poems with overt political themes of rejectionism and resistance. For instance, his poem Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat, a stinging self-criticism of Arab inferiority, drew anger from both the right and left sides of the Arab political dialogue.

Nizar Kabbani married twice in his life. His first wife was his cousin Zahra; together they had a daughter Hadba and a son Tawfiq. Tawfiq died due to a heart attack at 17 years old while he was a medical student in Cairo. Kabbani eugolized his son in the famous poem "To The Legendary Damascene Prince Tawfiq Kabbani". His daughter Hadba is married to a doctor and is living in one of the Arab Gulf countries.

His second marriage was to an Iraqi woman named Balqis Al Rawi; she was killed in a bomb attack on the Iraqi embassy in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war on 15 December 1982. Her death had a severe psychological effect on Kabbani; he expressed his grief in his famous poem "Balqis," assigning responsibility for her death to the entire Arab world. Together they had a son Omar and a daughter Zainab. After the death of Balqis, Kabbani did not marry again.

After the death of Balqis, Kabbani left Beirut. He was moving between Geneve and Paris, eventually settling in London, where he spent his last 15 years of his life. Kabbani continued to write poems and raise controversies and arguments. Notable controversial poems from this period in his life include "When Will They Announce the Death of Arabs?" and "Runners".

He later died on April 30, 1998, at the age of 75.

Kabbani began writing poetry when he was 16 years old; he published in 1944 at his own expense his first book of poems, entitled The Dark Skinned Told Me (قالت لي السمراء), while he was a law student at the University of Syria.

Over the course of a half-century, Kabbani wrote 34 more books of poetry, including:

• Childhood of a Breast (1948)
• Samba (1949)
• You Are Mine (1950)
• Poems (1956)
• My Beloved (1961)
• Drawing with Words (1966)
• Diary of an Indifferent Woman (1968)
• Savage Poems (1970)
• Book of Love (1970)
• 100 Love Letters (1970)
• Poems Against The Law (1972)
• I Love You, and the Rest is to Come (1978)
• To Beirut the Feminine, With My Love (1978)
• May You Be My Love For Another Year (1978)
• I Testify That There Is No Woman But You (1979)
• I Write the History of Woman Like So (1981)
• The Lover's Dictionary (1981)
• A Poem For Balqis (1982)
• Love Does Not Stop at Red Lights (1985)
• Insane Poems (1985)
• Poems Inciting Anger (1986)
• Love shall Remain, Sir (1987)
• Three Stone-throwing Children (1988)
• Secret Papers of a Karmathian Lover (1988)
• Biography of an Arab Executioner (1988)
• A Match in My Hand (1989)
• Petty Paper Nations (1989)
• No Victor Other Than Love (1989)
• Do You Hear the Cry of My Sadness? (1991)
• Marginal Notes on the Book of Defeat (1991)

He also composed many works of prose, such as My Story with Poetry, What Poetry Is, and Words Know Anger, On Poetry, Sex, and Revolution, and The Woman in My Poetry and My Life, as well as lyrics of many famous songs of celebrated Arab singers, among them Abdel Halim Hafez, Fairuz and Kazem al-Saher.

Many of Kabbani's poems have also been translated into English, both individually and in collections of selected works. Some of these collections include:

• On Entering the Sea (1998)
• Arabian Love Poems (1998) translated by Bassam Frangieh and Clementina R. Brown
• Republic of Love (2002) translated by Nayef al-Kalali

• Nizar Kabbani
• Home page
• Nizar Qabbani at Damascus-online
• Biographical Sketch at Adab.com
• Works of Nizar Kabbani
• English translations of selected Kabbani works
• Thoughts Inspired by PBS’s Two-Sentence Report on The Death of Syrian Poet Nizar Qabbani By Salman M. Hilmy, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, pages 74-76