SWAG��Ƶ

Schedule

Thursday, June 9th : 5.00 - 7.30 pm

Welcome ceremony (SWAG��Ƶ, Tangier)

Art and book exhibition: Mostafa Naffi

MC: Dr. Khalid Amine (International Center for Performance Studies)

Welcome remarks: Anouar Majid (Director of the Tangier Global Forum, SWAG��Ƶ)

Opening remarks: Abdelkader Jamoussi (Organizer of the Symposium)

Inaugural remarks: A Foreign Language, a Foreign Land: Hassan Hami

The Center for Cross Cultural Learning: Farah Sharif Wazzan

The Kerouac Project of Orlando: Mona El Alaoui - Janet Benge

Overview on the UCF – Moroccan collaboration and partnership: Mirvate El jerdi

Tea ceremony: poetry readings with music (El Habib Louai / Ahmed Ouahid)

Friday, June 10: 5.00 - 7.30 pm

Plenary session: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation and the American haiku

MC: Abdelkader Jamoussi (100 Haiku for Kerouac)

The Kerouac Project of Orlando: Kerouac’s legacy: Janet and Geoff Benge

Kerouac and the Beat Generation writers in Tangier:  Ali Al -Kassimi

The Haiku Be-Bop of Jack Kerouac & the Beats: Stanford M. Forrester

Kerouac Haiku, a reading: Idriss Issa

Kerouac, A Restless Quest for Freedom of the Spirit: El Habib Louai

The question of the Prose poem and haiku: Nouri Al Jarrah

Poetry readings: Idris Issa, Nouri Al Jarrah, Mouna Ouahid, Stanford M. Forrester, Houda Eletr

Saturday, June 11

Session 2: Creative Writing Workshop

Morning: 11.00 am - 12.30 pm

Moderator: Mbarek Sryfi

Stanford M. Forrester (American Haiku Poet)

Rochelle Hurt (University of Central Florida UCF)

Youssouf Amin Elalamy (University of Ibn Tofail)

Mokhtar  Ait Omar (cinema and film critic) 

Evening: 5.00 pm - 7.30 pm

Session 3: The Haiku Poem: For A New Rhetoric?

MC: Abdelhai Moudden (The Center for Cross Cultural Learning)

On the road with Kerouac: Mbarek Sryfi

The Haiku and the Modern Arabic Poetry: Youssef Naouri

The art of Haiku according to Eisenstein theory of editing: Azedine El Ouafi

Moroccan haiku (field and context): Abdelkader Jamoussi

Poetry readings: Idriss Issa, Mouna Ouahid, Stanford M. Forrester, Nassima Raoui, Saleh Zamanan

Closing Ceremony: 9.00 - 11.30 pm.

Speaker Bios

(in alphabetical order by last name)

Mona El Alaoui. Moroccan–American expert. Graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Her professional experience includes both non-profit and private sector positions with such multinational and world-renowned organizations as UNICEF, Procter & Gamble, Beiersdorf, and Johnson Wax. She has lived in over 14 different countries and created sustainable, lasting relationships with men and women from over 75 countries as a true citizen of the world. Mona’s work with UNICEF provided her the opportunity to create marketing and business development strategies that heightened the organization’s profile and offerings on a global scale. Her professional training is extensive, her business experience runs deep, and she brings a coach’s heart to the Kerouac Board. 

Khalid Amine. is Senior Professor of Performance Studies, Faculty of Letters and Humanities at Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tétouan, Morocco. He has been Research Fellow at the International Research Center “Interweaving Performance Cultures” at Freie Universität Berlin, and is now Member of the Advisory Board. He is the winner of the 2007 Helsinki Prize of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). He was Friedrich Hölderlin Guest Professor at Goethe-University, Frankfurt/M., Germany (2017/18). Since 2007, he has been Founding President of the International Centre for Performance Studies (ICPS) in Tangier. He was member of IFTR Ex-Com (2011–2018), head of Jury at the Arab Theatre Festival (6th Edition, Sharjah 2014), and Advisor at Saudi National Theatre (2020/2023). His books include: Beyond Brecht (1996), Moroccan Theatre between East and West (2000), Fields of Silence in Moroccan Theatre (2004), Dramatic Art and the Myth of Origins (2007), Dancing on the Hyphen: Essays on Arab Theatre (2019). Amine is co-author with Distinguished Professor Marvin Carlson of The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia: Performance Traditions of the Maghreb (2012); he is the Co-Editor of Performing Transformations (2012), The Art of Dialogue: East-West (2014), Intermediality, Performance and the Public Sphere (2014), Memory and Theatre (2015), Across Borders and Thresholds: Performing in Zones of Contact and Friction (2020).

Geoff Benge. Born and raised in New Zealand, Geoff Benge holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and philosophy from Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand. He has been writing books commercially for the past 36 years. Geoff, along with his wife Janna, are a writing team and together they have ghostwritten numerous books before beginning their own series of biographies of interesting people for middle and high school students. There are currently 82 books in this series, with more than 10 million copies in print. Geoff began attending literary events at the Kerouac House eighteen years ago and today serves as the V. P. of the Residency Program for the Kerouac Project. As well as managing the day-to-day operation of the residency program, he oversees the yearly process of selecting the next four people to become writers-in-residence at the Kerouac House. He is delighted with the way the residency program has grown and matured over the years. He also enjoys talking with the residents and other writers in the local community and beyond, encouraging them and imparting some lessons he’s learned about writing and publishing throughout his career.

Janet (Janna) Benge.  Joined the Board of Directors of the Kerouac Project in 2010 and has served as President of the organization since 2016. She lives and works in Winter Park, Florida. She was born and raised in New Zealand and started her career as a public-school teacher, though she quickly transitioned to being a fulltime writer. She has lived in the Philippines, Tonga (South Pacific), throughout the United States, including Hawaii, Texas, Montana, and for two years on a Native American reservation in Washington State. She loves cross cultural exchange along with the process of writing and reading. Her involvement with the Kerouac Project of Orlando provides a perfect blending of these interests. Janna and her Geoff have ghostwritten numerous books before beginning their own series of biographies of interesting people for middle and high school students. There are currently 82 books in this series, with more than 10 million copies in print.

Farah Cherif D’Ouezzan founded the Center for Cross-Cultural Learning (CCCL) in 1995.  She is presently its General Director as well as a Founding member of Thaqafat Association. She has directed the organization since, trained the staff throughout the years, developed and designed its various programs and activities. Her academic interest lays in research in Comparative Religion with a focus on teaching Islam from a cross-cultural perspective.  She conducts modules, seminars, courses and workshops on religion and culture, women and gender issues, Islam and Human Rights as well as Sufism in Morocco. As a founding member of Thaqafat association, she became interested in volunteerism, internships as well as career development and youth employability. 

Farah Cherif D’Ouezzan holds a degree in comparative Literature from Mohammed Vth University in Rabat and a certificate on Women and Gender Issues from the University of Hanover, Germany. She finished writing her very first book about 25+ years in cross-cultural education from the hosting perspective and plans to publish soon. She has been lecturing and conducting seminars worldwide and in Morocco for the CCCL participants and others, as well as offering live webinars or virtual classrooms.

Youssouf Amine Elalamy. A full university professor at Ibn Tofaïl University in Kenitra, Morocco, where he teaches Literature, Arts, Media and Communication. He holds a PhD in communication. In 1991, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study the aesthetics of commercial culture. Affiliated to N.Y.U. and the New York Institute for the Humanities, he also took courses on advertising copywriting and advertising promotion techniques at the F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology) and the Parsons School of Design. He is the winner of the 2001 “Grand Atlas” literature Prize and the 2010 “Le Plaisir de lire” Prize for his novel Les Clandestins. He is also the winner of the first edition of the British Council literature Prize for English writing held in 1999 and the Orange Prize for best African francophone novel 2020 for his book C’est beau, la guerre.

Youssouf Amine Elalamy is the author of 13 books (9 novels). Initially written in French. His books have been translated into several languages, including Arabic, English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian and Greek. Two of his works, A Moroccan in New York and Sea Drinkers have been published in the US in one volume under the title: Two Novellas by YAE (Lexington Books, Nov. 2008). His novel, Amour Nomade, has also been published in English translation by US publisher Lavender Ink (2014) and in German translation by Osburg Verlag. Some of his books have been adapted on stage and street theatre. Elalamy’s art exhibit “Miniatures” was held in January 2007 at the Free Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, Holland, and in June 2007 at the De Levante Art Gallery in Amsterdam.

Houda Eletr. Born in South Carolina but raised in Florida. She is twenty years old. She has been writing poetry since she was twelve years old. Since writing has been a passion of hers for years now, she has decided to go to school for journalism. Attended the University of Central Florida in the fall of 2022 to continue her education. She writes haiku and short poems.

Stanford M. Forrester/sekiro. Haiku poet, past president of the Haiku Society of America, and editor of bottle rockets, a leading haiku magazine for the past 24 years in the United States. His haiku have appeared in Haiku in English: The First 100 Years published by Norton, as well as, in Haiku: An Anthology, published by Knopf. In 2003, he won 1st place in the 57th Annual Bashō Contest in Ueno Japan. In 2004, he was one of the top prize winners of the Haiku International Association 6th Annual Contest. In 2018 one of poems was a awarded a top prize in the English division of the Ito-en Tea International Haiku Contest where over 28,500 haiku were entered. In 2008 he was a featured presenter in Bangalore, India, as well as, being honored at the meeting for a lifetime achievement by the World Haiku Festival. He is the author of 11 books and chapbooks with still more to come. Forrester's haigo (his Japanese pen name) is sekiro which means "dew on a stone" or "stone dew." His last haiku book A Tea Ceremony is published in English and Arabic in collaboration with Moroccan poet Abdelkader Jamoussi.

Hassan Hami. Born in Morocco, Hassan Hami holds a PhD in Political Sciences. He is a career diplomat. He previously worked as a freelance journalist and as a part-time adjunct. As a diplomat, he served in Africa South of the Sahara, Europe, East Asia, North America, South Caucasus and Central Asia. Polyglot, he manages to write in Arabic (his mother language), French and English. He has a good working knowledge of Norwegian and Russian. So far, he has published, seven novels in French, three novels in English, three books of poetry in Arabic (some are translated into Azerbaijani and Russian languages) and three textbooks of International Relations Theory in French. He has also published articles in various magazines and journals dealing with international politics in French and Arabic. His publications in English include Sparkling Ashes over the Rainbow (novel, 2014), Scratches Never Heal (novel, 2015), Twisting Toward the Rolling Stones (short stories 2016).

Rochelle Hurt. Professor of creative writing at the University of Central Florida and a member of the Jack Kerouac Project Board. She is also author of three poetry collections: The J Girls: A Reality Show (Indiana University Press, 2022); In Which I Play the Runaway (Barrow Street, 2016), which won the Barrow Street Poetry Prize; and The Rusted City: A Novel in Poems (White Pine, 2014). Her work has been included in Poetry magazine and the Best New Poets anthology, and she's been awarded prizes and fellowships from Arts & Letters, Poetry International, Vermont Studio Center, Jentel, and Yaddo. Haiku in the Writing Classroom: Teaching Haiku as a Contemporary Form in English.

Idriss Issa. A Moroccan poet, translator and art critic who was born in 1956 in Kenitra, Morocco. He received his bachelor’s degree in Arabic Literature and a Diplome des Etudes Superieures Approfondies from the Faculty of Letters in Rabat. He joined the Moroccan Union of Writers in 1990. He has published his poems in many Moroccan and Arab newspapers and magazines. His poetry collections include: A Woman from the Farthest Wind (1990) which was awarded the prestigious literary prize of Al-Naqid Magazine in London. In haiku poetry, he is a co-founder of The International Haiku Symposium in Morocco since 2015. He wrote articles and lectured on Haiku. He translated Shadow of a Tree on a Wall, a haiku collection by the Bulgarian poetess Zlatka Timinova. His poetry appeared in many Arabic, French and English anthologies such as Deborah Kapchan’s Poetic Justice, and Anthology of Contemporary Moroccan Poetry (2019).

Abdelkader Jamoussi. Born in Kenitra in 1969. As a diplomat, he has served in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan. Currently resides in New York. As a poet, he has published five collections of poetry: Two Knots and One Poem (2006), The Land of the Kangaroo (2014), A Flute to Save the Rose-Haiku Poems (2016), Alphabet 29 haiku (2019) and Tea Ceremony, Haiku and Senryu, a bilingual edition in collaboration with Stanford M. Forrester (2022). He authored the Life of Spinoza, Anthology of Arabic Haiku (2016), and Moroccan Haiku (2020). He translated The Epic of Gilgamesh (2003), Machiavelli's The Prince (2004), T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets (2005), Classic Japanese Haiku (2015), 30 Haiku Poems (2016), and Anthology of World Haiku (2016). His first novel Imagining London was published in 2017. He is a member of the Moroccan Writers' Union. He founded the Festival of Arab Poetry in Kenitra, and directed it in 2009 and 2010. Founder and organizer of the International Haiku Symposium in Morocco since 2015.

Nouri Al-Jarrah is a Syrian poet, prose writer and journalist. Born in 1956 in Damascus. He is one of the most influential contemporary poets of the Arabic-speaking world and has founded several literary magazines. His poetry has been published in 16 collections, many of which have been awarded prizes in various parts of the Arab world, including The Boy (1982), Ode to a Voice (1990), Hamlet’s Gardens (2003), and Noah’s Despair (2014). His poems present his vision of poetry and life, to which he has lent a unique voice over the years. His verse leans on a variety of cultural sources, with a particular way of focusing on mythology, folktales, and legends while reflecting on metaphysical considerations and deep, existential questions. Nouri al-Jarrah has been also influential in reviving the role of travel literature in Arabic culture. In 2000, he and Mohammad Ahmad Al-Suwaidi the Center for Arabic Geographical Center which administers The annual Ibn Battuta prize for travel writing. The Center produces publications and hosts an annual conference.

Mirvate El Jerdi has over a decade of diverse work experience in higher education and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education Leadership program at the University of Central Florida.  She has obtained her Master of Education from the University of Central Oklahoma and proceeded to work in higher education in the Middle East and the United States. She is passionate about internationalization in higher education and global engagement and has held several leadership positions including as faculty and student services professional. At the University of Central Florida, she has provided advising and targeted support to UCF’s international students. She has also managed the special programs from the MENA region and served as the liaison for embassies, foreign government entities, and private international partners. She currently serves as a Senior Coordinator and Special Advisor for Middle East and North Africa with UCF’s Office of Global Perspectives and International Initiatives. El Jerdi is fluent in Arabic and English.”

Ali Al-Kasimi. An Iraqi academician and writer living in Morocco. He studied at Baghdad University, the American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut Arab University, University of Texas, Oxford and the Sorbonne. He has a PhD in philosophy. He has taught at the universities of Baghdad, Rabat, and Riyadh. Previously, he was educational director and then cultural director at ISESCO and director of the Federation of the Universities of the Islamic World. He has written and co-authored over 50 books in Arabic and English. As a prominent linguist, he published many books on linguistics and translation theory: The Essential Arabic Dictionary, Dictionary of Quotations, Linguistics and Dictionary Making, Arabic Lexicography in Theory and Practice, Terminology. As a literary figure, he authored many novels and short stories including Collected Short Stories, and a novel The Seven Harbors of Love. In 2002 he published a translation of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast and in 2003 his selection of Best American Short Stories.

El Habib Louai. Moroccan poet, translator, musician and assistant professor of English literature and cultural studies at Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco. His research focuses on the cultural encounters, colonial discourse and postcolonial theory. He worked the Beats’ archives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Fulbright grantee. He took creative writing courses at Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Boulder, Colorado where he performed with Anne Waldman and Thurston Moore. His articles and Arabic translations of Beat writers and poets appeared in international literary journals. His poems appeared in a number of magazines such as Big Bridge Magazine, Berfrois, Charles River Journal, Militant Thistles, The Fifth Estate, Lumina, The Poet’s Haven, The MUD Proposal and Sagarana. Louai’s Arabic translations include America, America: An Anthology of Beat Poetry, Michael Rothenberg’s Indefinite Detention: A Dog Story, Bob Kaufman’s The Ancient Rain, Giorgio Agamben’s What is an Apparatus and Other Essays and Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters. He also contributed with Arabic translations to Seven Countries: An Anthology Against Trump’s Ban published by Arroyo Seco Press. He published two collections of poems: Mrs. Jones Will Now Know: Poems of a Desperate Rebel and Rotten Wounds Embalmed with Tar which was a finalist for the 2020 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry.

Abdelhay Moudden. Received his B.A. from the Faculty of Law at Mohamed V University in Rabat, his M.A. in Political Science from the University of West Florida, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. He has been teaching political science and international relations in Rabat since 1978. He has been a Fulbright scholar at the School for International Training and Marlboro College in Vermont, lectured widely around the world, and published a number of professional articles in his fields. He published two novels in Arabic. One in 1996 and a second in 2003 The Farewell Sermon, which won the Moroccan Book Award. Abdelhay Moudden is a former member of the Moroccan Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is currently a member of the Consultative Council for Human Rights. He and Farah Cherif d’Ouezzan are co-founders of the Center for Cross Cultural Learning, a private cultural institution founded in 1995, that organizes a variety of cultural and educational activities which include Arabic courses, seminars and conferences of different topics. The CCCL also sponsors art exhibits and musical performances and educational excursions to various part of Morocco. The CCCL is the first and a major sponsor of the The International Haiku Symposium in Morocco since its inception in 2015.

Mostafa Naffi. Moroccan Artist, born in Kenitra. Technical diploma in applied arts, professorship in applied arts, former president of the Moroccan Free Union Artists. Organized his first exhibition in 1979. Since then, he exhibited in different cities of Morocco and abroad: the United Arab Emirates (1990), Russia (1991), Ukraine (1991), Spain (1996), France (1997, 2001, 2016), the United States of America (2011, 2012, 2015). He won many awards in art. He organized an exhibition of thirty paintings inspired by Haiku poems for the 2nd edition of the International Haiku Symposium in Morocco (2016). He lives between Morocco (Kenitra) and the USA (Miami).

Youssef Naouri. Born in 1963 in Tangier. He holds a PhD from Mohammed V University in Rabat in 2003. He is Professor of higher education in Arabic language and Moroccan culture at the Higher International Institute for Tourism in Tangier (1995- present). Professor at the Faculty of Arts in Meknes, teaching students of the Master of Moroccan Literature and Dialectic of Creativity and Criticism (2019- present). He participated in academic seminars and scientific forums inside and outside Morocco (Algeria; Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria; Abu Dhabi, Sultanate of Oman, Spain). He also participated in a number of doctoral discussions and scientific arbitration committees for employment and promotion at the Faculty of Arts in Tetouan and the Center for Professions of Education and Training in Rabat, and in festivals of prize Poetry selection. He is a member of the editorial board of the House of Poetry magazine: published by the House of Poetry in Morocco. In addition to these achievements, he has written a number of books, namely: In the Bliss of Loneliness and Death: Poems for Latin American Poetesses in 2019; The Poetry of the Mysterious: The Contemporary Poetic Text Engagement in 2016; Modern Poetry in the Maghreb (in two parts) in 2006; and Autobiography in Moroccan Poetry.

Mokhtar Ait Omar was born in 1951. He worked as a teacher after obtaining a BA in Arabic Literature in 1972. He is a founder member of the film club movement in Morocco. He served as Secretary-General of the National Federation of Cinema Clubs in Morocco and then as its president from 1983 to 1991. He is considered as one of the most prominent actors and film critics in Morocco and Africa. He organized many Film festivals and moderated many workshops in the art of cinematography. He was Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Studies Magazine since 1985. Was designated as Secretary General of the Association of Film Critics in Morocco and a member of the editorial board of the Magazine Cine-Ma. Mokhtar Ait Omar is currently the director of the Short Film Festival of Kenitra.

Azedine El Ouafi is a writer, art critic and a translator. Received a Bachelor of arts in English literature and a high studies degree on drama and James Joyce’s work (1994). He is a teacher of aesthetics of the image at the institute of  journalism and mass media in Tangier. Director and founder of Cap Spartel International film Festival, the Moroccan Observatory for Images and Media and Med Forum for Visual Arts in Tangier. As art critic, he was a member of critics’ jury at the Emirates film festival in ABU Dhabi (2008), the national film festival in Tangier and the International film of Mena in Holland 2017. He directed many films and documentaries, including The Gates of Jasmin (2007), Aquarium (2009), Hands (2011), Zig-Zag (2012), The Waves of August (2013), The Tree of Wishes (2016) and Tangier in love (2020). Azedine El Ouafi is member of the Morocco Writers’ Union. In 2001, he published a haiku collection titled Leaves from Another Time, in Arabic and Spanish. And produced short videos inspired from Haiku poetry. His bibliography includes: On the Image and Television –mass media (2005), Shades and Lights, cinematographic studies on world cinema (2007), The Structure of the  Cinematographic Language (2008), Visions on the Moroccan cinema (2010), The Power of the Image and the Rethorics of the Body (2016), The film work, the literary and the aesthetics (2017), The film text: analysis and reception (2019).

Mouna Ouahid. Born in Kenitra (Morocco). Major in Philosophy from Mohammed V University in Rabat. She taught philosophy in Morocco and Arabic Language at the Australian National University (Canberra). She was introduced to Haiku poetry during her stay in Tokyo from 2014 to2018. She attended the World Haiku Association Japan Conference at Meiji University in 2015. She is a co-founder of the International Haiku Symposium in Morocco since 2015. Her first Haiku collection in Arabic Belonging to a Blind Sky was published in (2019). Her second haiku collection Even If… was published in Arabic and English at bottle rockets press by the American haiku poet Stanford Forrester. Her poems appeared at the Moroccan Haiku Anthology: The Field and the Context (2019). She is currently a teacher of English as a foreign Language at Westchester Community College (New York).

Nassima Al-Rawi. Moroccan poetess and novelist born in Rabat (1988). She holds a postgraduate diploma in marketing and international trade and a degree in law. She is member of the Executive Board of the House of Poetry in Morocco. She Received the Tangier International Poet Prize in 2012 and was honored at the Sharjah Forum in Honor of Young Poets in Morocco, organized by the Department of Culture and Information - Sharjah and Ibn Tofail University in Morocco in 2012. She won the Culture Dialogue Prize for Moroccan Literature in 2013 and the Baland Al-Haidari Prize for Young Arab Poets in 2018. Her poetry collections include: Before Tangiers Awakens, Love of Words, and Locks of Sea Gates.

Mbarek Sryfi. Moroccan–American poet and translator. Teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has been widely published in many journals and magazines, and anthologies including Al Arabiyya, ArabLit Quarterly, Banipal, CEELAN Review, Metamorphoses, Middle Eastern Literatures, Nick Virgilio Haiku Association, Journal of North African Studies, The Markaz Review, Translation Review, World Literature Today, and World Poetry Tree, among others. Sryfi has co- authored Perspectives: Arabic Language and Culture in Film (2009), and co-translated five books: The Monarch of the Square (2014), The Arabs and the Art of Storytelling (2014), The Elusive Fox (2016), The Blueness of the Evening (2018), and With Urgency (2021). He translated The Handsome Jew (2022), and published three poetry collections in English: The Trace of a Smile (2018), City Poems (2020), and Chasing a Moving Landscape (2022). and a collection in Arabic Do Not Relate Your Vision to Your Brothers (2022).

Saleh Zamanan. Saudi poet and playwright born in 1985. He received a Master’s degree in Theatrical Literature. He is the director of the CRIK in Riyadh. He is also a member in the Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts; the Saudi Playwrights Association; the Arab Authority for Theatre; and the jury of the festival of theatrical creativity in Souk Okaz. He is General Coordinator of the Qas Bin Saeda Cultural Festival in Najran; General Coordinator of the First Asian Arabization Conference in 2019 in Riyadh; Coordinator of the Saudi Cultural Program in Beijing / China in 2019; and Coordinator of the first Saudi-Uzbek Literature Conference in 2021. He has published 11 books in the field of poetry and theater, and has authored many plays. He received the Senussi Poetry Prize in 2021 for his poetry collection (Returning From his Father). He won the Saudi Ministry of Culture Book Award in 2017 for his theatrical book (Raw Scarecrows).