Ghayath Almadhoun

Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus in 1979. He moved to Sweden in 2008. He writes poetry, and his work has been translated into nearly 30 languages.

Almadhoun has published five poetry collections in Arabic, the most recent being Adrenaline (2017) and I Brought You a Severed Hand (2024), both published by Almutawassit in Milan.

His poetry has gained international recognition, and he has collaborated extensively with artists and scholars while curating numerous literary events, readings, and anthologies. His work has also been featured in various artistic projects. The renowned American artist Jenny Holzer has projected his poems onto major art installations, including For Aarhus in Denmark, MASS MoCA in the United States, Off-White in Florence, Italy, Blenheim Palace in England, Tutta la Verità in Bergamo, Italy, and for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Additionally, legendary musician Blixa Bargeld has performed readings of Almadhoun’s poetry in Norway and Greece.

Almadhoun has also created several poetry films in collaboration with Marie Silkeberg, and his most recent film, Évian, won the Zebra Award for Best Poetry Film in 2020

His book Adrenalin, a selection of his poems translated into English by Catherine Cobham, was published by Action Books in the U.S. in November 2017. It was longlisted for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) in the U.S. and was among Small Press Distribution’s poetry bestsellers for four months: December 2017, January 2018, February 2018, and January 2019.

In 2022/2023, Almadhoun curated and edited the German poetry anthology Kontinentaldrift – Das Arabische Europa, featuring 31 Arabic poets living in Europe. He translated the anthology into German and published it bilingually (German-Arabic) with an extensive foreword on Arabic poetry. The anthology was published in September 2023 by Verlag das Wunderhorn in collaboration with Haus für Poesie in Berlin.

Almadhoun was awarded the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program scholarship (Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) for 2019/2020. He currently lives between Berlin and Stockholm.

In February 2025, his new book I Have Brought You a Severed Hand, was published simultaneously in English translation by Action Books in the U.S. and Divided Publishing in London and Brussels.