Rodaan Al Galidi has written two stories for Radio Books. One is a very personal account of arriving in Amsterdam as an asylum seeker. The other is a very quirky tale of two unfortunate brothers.

Rodaan Al Galidi - February in Schipol

Rodaan Al Galidi was born in southern Iraq in 1971 but doesn’t know the exact date. “In the desert birthdays aren’t celebrated,” he explains. But his large family including 10 brothers and sisters all celebrated theirs together on the 1st of July.

As a child he wanted to play the violin. His father bought him one but there was no music teacher in his village. He began to think he could play the violin with words and started writing poetry when he was eight years old. Years later he studied civil engineering in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

Asylum seeker

Al Galidi left Iraq and arrived in the Netherlands in 1998 as an asylum seeker. His story ‘February in Schipol’ is based on his personal experience. As an asylum seeker he was not permitted “to work, to travel or to think,” he notes on his website. So he taught himself Dutch and began to write again – for which he thanks the Dutch Immigration Service and the Ministry of Justice.

Soon he was writing columns for several Dutch newspapers and magazines. In 2002 he published a collection of them under the title ‘Dagboek van een ezel’ (Diary of an ass). In the same year he published his first collection of poetry ‘De fiets, de vrouw en de liefde’ (The bicycle, the woman and the love”). In 2003 he was nominated for the prestigious J.C. Bloem Prize.

He has written two novels which have yet to be translated into English. ‘Mijn opa, de president en de andere dieren’ (My grandfather, the president and the other animals) explores Iraq under Saddam Hussein through the eyes of a child. ‘Maanlichtmoerassen’ (Moonlight marshes) is about a woman who feels like a stranger in her own world.

In translation

His 2008 novel 'Dorstige Rivier' has recently been published in an English translation under the title 'Thirsty River' by Aflame Books – an independent UK publisher. The book documents three generations of a family in Iraq from the early twentieth century until the present. It was nominated for two major Dutch literary awards.

Rodaan Al Galidi - Tango with Goat

Both Radio Book stories by Rodaan Al Galidi - ‘February in Schipol’ and ‘Tango with Goat’ - were translated by Irish writer and poet Michael O’Loughlin whose work is included in the acclaimed collection ‘Turning Tides: Modern Dutch & Flemish Verse in English Versions by Irish Poets.’

The series Radio Books is an initiative of Flemish-Dutch Huis de Buren in Brussels, in association with the Flemish radio broadcaster Klara and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.