Antoon was born in 1967 in Baghdad. He received his B.A. in English with distinction from the University of Baghdad in 1990 with minors in Arabic and Translation. He left Iraq in 1991 after the onset of the Gulf War and moved to the United States. He completed an M.A. in Arab Studies from Georgetown University in 1995. In 2006, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Arabic and Islamic Studies. His doctoral dissertation was the first study on the 10th century poet, Ibn al-Hajjaj and the genre of poetry he pioneered. "He was one of a coterie of dissident diasporic Iraqi intellectuals who opposed the 2003 US occupation of his homeland that led to the current post-colonial quagmire." Antoon was featured in the 2003 documentary filmAbout Baghdad, which he also co-directed and co-produced. His articles have appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Nation, and in pan-Arab dailies including al-Hayat, al-Akhbar and as-Safir where he writes a weekly opinion column. His poems and novels have been translated to nine languages. He is also a co-founder and co-editor of the e-zine Jadaliyya.
Literary works
Poetry
Antoon has published two collection of poetry in Arabic: Mawshur Muballal bil-Hurub and Laylun Wahidun fi Kull al-Mudun . He has published a collection in English entitled The Baghdad Blues.
Novels
Antoon has published four novels:
I`jaam was widely acclaimed in the Arab world and described as "the Iraqi novel par excellence." It was translated to English by Rebecca Johnson and the author as I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody and published by CityLights Books in 2006. Other translations include German, Norwegian, Italian, and Portuguese.
Wahdaha Shajarat al-Rumman was translated by the author and published by Yale University Press in 2013 as The Corpse Washer and was longlisted for the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction. It won the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Literary Translation. The Argentinian writer Alberto Manguel described as "one of the most extraordinary novels he's read in a long time." The translation was published by Actes Sud in 2017 and won the 2017 Prix de la Littérature Arabe for the best Arabic novel translated to French in 2017. Its translation in Malayalam language in the title "Vellaputhappikkunnavar" was done by Dr. Shamnad N, Head of the department, University College, Trivandrum, Kerala.
Ya Maryam was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and was translated to Spanish by Maria Luz Comendador and published by Turner Libros in May 2014 under the title Fragments de Bagdad. The English translation was published in 2017 as by Hoopoe Books.
Fihris . Was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Honors and awards
2017 for "Seul le Grenadier" .
2017 "Fihris" longlisted for the .
2016/2017: Fellow at the .
2014: for his translation of his own novel The Corpse Washer
