Rodaan Al Galidi

Rodaan Al Galidi is a poet and writer. Born in Iraq and trained as a civil engineer, he has lived in the Netherlands since 1998. As an undocumented asylum seeker he did not have the right to attend language classes, so he taught himself to read and write Dutch. His novel De autist en de postduif (“The Autist and the Carrier Pigeon”) won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2011 – the same year he failed his Dutch citizenship course. His novels Two Blankets, Three Sheets and The Leash and the Ball are published in English by World Editions and both are bestsellers in the Netherlands. The Leash and the Ball is translated into English by Jonathan Reeder and it will be published later in summer 2022 with early copies available for sale at West Cork Literary Festival.

Rodaan’s participation in West Cork Literary Festival is supported by the Nederlands Letterenfonds / Dutch Foundation for Literature as part of their New Dutch Writing programme.