was born in Damascus, Syria in 1936 to Kurdish parents. As a young man, he established a newspaper for art and literature that the government soon after banned. In 1957 he became an active member of the Arabic Writers Association in Syria. He was forced to leave his country after the government banned the organization. After stopovers in Beirut, Munich and West-Berlin, he arrived in Leipzig in 1961 where he studied at the Institute of Literature. In 1970 he completed his dissertation on the theater of Brecht. From 1968 until 1993 he worked at the university in Leipzig. In 1985 he received the Kunstpreis der Stadt Leipzig, and in 1992 the Albert-von-Chamisso-Preis. He is currently the president of the Leipzig Writers Association. He is a prolific writer of great poems that deal with being a foreigner in a new home (the notion of “Daheim in der Fremde”). Volker Braun wrote the following poem in his honor: