20 January 2023: A memorial service for the great Arab poet, the icon of culture and art in Yemen, Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Maqaleh was held in London. The event was widely attended by a large number of political and literary prestigious figures from Yemen and the Arab World, as well as from the Yemeni community in Britain.
During the event that was held in the Yemeni embassy, organized by Tamadon Foundation for Cultural Development, the participants talked about Al-Maqaleh, the great, creative and unique man, whose personality will stay in the conscious of Yemenis for centuries.
This came in a series of speeches from Dr. Yassin Saeed Noman, the Ambassador of Yemen to the UK, Dr. Hamdan Dammag, Vice President of the Yemeni Center for Studies and Research, Anwar Al-Ansi, a well-known journalist, who also read a condolence letter from the great Arab poet Adonis, along with the Iraqi poet Amal Jubouri, the Tunisian poet Ahmed Zaabar, and a written testimony by the Syrian poet, Nouri al-Jarrah.
After that, some selected poems of Al-Maqaleh were recited by Abdul Hakim al-Qadi, Wajdi Raweh and Youssef al-Shamir. James Firebrace, Chair of the British Yemeni Society, also recited some translated poems from the memorial book that was distributed to the attendees.
The event, which was moderated by Dr. Mahmoud Alazani, was concluded with a visual presentation of important and influential testimonies about Al-Maqaleh by a number of elites of poetry, thought and criticism in the Arab world including Muhammad Abdel Salam Mansour (Yemen), Prof. Kamal Abu Deeb (Syria), Dr. Omar Abdel Aziz (Yemen), Dr. Ali Jaafar Al-Alaq (Iraq), Prof. Habib Sururi (Yemen), Abdul Razzaq Al-Rubaie (Iraq), Dr. Hatem Al-Sagr (Iraq) and Muhammad Bennis (Morocco).
Tamadon Foundation and the British Yemeni Society have agreed to cooperate and jointly working on a project to produce Al-Maqaleh’s poetry translation from Arabic into English.
