Ahmed Mejjati was an influential Moroccan avant-garde poet.

Biography

Mejjati studied in Damascus

Damascus

Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...

 and completed his PhD in Arabic literature at the Mohammed V University

Mohammed V University

Mohammed V University was founded in 1957 under a royal decree . It is the first modern university in Morocco.The university is named after Mohammed V d. 1961, the former King of Morocco. In 1993, it was divided into two independent universities:* Mohammed V University at Agdal* Mohammed V...

 in Rabat

Rabat

Rabat , is the capital and third largest city of the Kingdom of Morocco with a population of approximately 650,000...

, where he also worked as a professor of Arabic literature.

He won the Ibn Zaydoun Award for poetry in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

in 1985, and the Prix du Maroc du livre in 1987.

He died in 1995.

Work

Mejjati’s poetry is characterized by its emphasis on pure Arabic diction and original syntactic formation. He published poems in magazines, but only one book of poetry:Al Fouroussiya (Chivalry).

The Syrian critic Mohammed Mohi Eddine called Mejjati's poem Assouqout one of the most beautiful poems in the Arabic language.

External links

• Poetry International web http://morocco.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=3815 (retrieved Feb. 12, 2009)