Qusay Abd al-Ra'uf Askar, commonly known as Qusay al-Shaykh Askar (Arabic: قصي الشيخ عسكر, romanized: Quṣayy al-Shaykh ʻAskar;1951) is an Iraqi-Danish novelist, poet and literary scholar. His first poetry collection was published in 1983 and his first novel in 1985, since then he has created many fictional works.[1][2][3][4]
Biography
Qusay Abd al-Ra'uf Askar was born in village of Nahr Jasim, Shatt Al-Arab District, east of Basra, Kingdom of Iraq in 1951.[5] His family name derived from his grandfather first name, Askar, plus a title of honor, Sheikh, since he was the first imam of the Iraqi army at the beginning of its establishment in the 1920.[5] He studied primary school in Shatt al-Arab and secondary school in al-Ashar, Basra. He received a BA in Arabic literature from Basra University, Department of Arabic Language, 1973–1984, and a MA in Arabic literature from Damascus University, 1984. Then he obtained PhD from the Islamic College, London, in 2004.[5][6]
He taught in the secondary schools of Iraq, Morocco and Libya. Worked as a reporter for Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, then emigrated to Denmark from Ba'athist Iraq. He worked as a broadcaster and program presenter for the Danish television, the Arabic section.[6]
He taught English at Cambridge Institute in Copenhagen for five years, and Danish language in schools of Denmark for three years.[6] He held Iraqi citizenship then became a naturalized citizen of Denmark,[2] and settled in Hellerup, then moved to Nottingham, United Kingdom, late 2000s.[5] In Denmark, Al-Shaykh Askar founded the Arab Writers Union of Scandinavia and was chosen to head the union.[6]
Fiction
Iraqi academic and literary critic, Najm Kazim [ar], in March 2017 published a list of the 100 best Iraqi novels of the twentieth century based on his “personal perception as a result of his long work in the field of literary criticism.” He placed three novels of Al-Shaykh Askar among them.[7] Al-Shaykh Askar once stated that "In fact, what interests me without hesitation is Russianrealism. Then I refrained from it and moved on to romanticism."[8]
^Yaʻqub, Imil (2004). Muʻjam al-shuʻarāʼ : mundhu badʼ ʻaṣr al-Nahḍah معجم الشعراء منذ بدء عصر النهضة [Dictionary of poets since the beginning of Nahda] (in Arabic). Vol. 2 (first ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Sader. p. 927.
^ abAl-Jaburi, Kamel Salman (2003). Mu'jam Al-Shu'ara' min Al-'Asr Al-Jahili Hatta Sanat 2002 معجم الشعراء من العصر الجاهلي حتى سنة 2002 [Dictionary of poets from the pre-Islamic era until 2002] (in Arabic). Vol. 4 (first ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah. p. 202.
^Al-Jaburi, Kamel Salman (2003). Mu'jam Al-Udaba' min Al-'Asr Al-Jahili Hatta Sanat 2002 معجم الأدباء من العصر الجاهلي حتى سنة 2002 [Dictionary of poets from the pre-Islamic era until 2002] (in Arabic). Vol. 4 (first ed.). Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Kotob Al-Ilmiyah. p. 492.
