Nazik al-Malaika (Arabic: نازك الملائكة; 23 August 1923 – 20 June 2007^[1]) was an Iraqi poet. Al-Malaika is noted for being among the first Arabic poets to use free verse.^[2]

Al-Malaika was born in Baghdad to a cultured family.^[3] Her mother Salma al-Malaika was also a poet, and her father was a teacher. She wrote her first poem at the age of 10.^[2] During her life, she studied English and French literature, Latin, and Greek poetry.^[4] Al-Malaika graduated in 1944 from the College of Arts in Baghdad and later completed a master's degree in comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a Degree of Excellence.^[5] She entered the Institute of Fine Arts and graduated from the Department of Music in 1949. In 1959 she earned a Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the United States, and she was appointed professor at the University of Baghdad, the University of Basrah, and Kuwait University.

Al-Malaika taught at a number of schools and universities, most notably at the University of Mosul.

Al-Malaika left Iraq in 1970 with her husband Abdel Hadi Mahbooba and family, following the rise of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Iraq to power. She lived in Kuwait until Saddam Hussein's invasion in 1990. Al-Malaika and her family left for Cairo, where she lived for the rest of her life. Towards the end of her life, al-Malaika suffered from a number of health issues, including Parkinson's disease.^[2]

She died in Cairo in 2007 at the age of 83.^[1]

• "The Nights Lover" (عاشقة الليل), her first book of poetry, after her graduation;
• "The Cholera" (الكوليرا) (1947) is considered by critics as a revolution in modern Arabic poetry;
• "Shrapnel and Ashes" (شظايا ورماد) (1949);
• "Bottom of the Wave" (قرارة الموجة) (1957);
• "Tree of the Moon" (شجرة القمر) (1968);
• "The sea changes its color" ("يغير ألوانه البحر")(1977)^[6]

One of her poems, Medinat al Hub, inspired the Iraqi artist and scholar, Issam al-Said to produce an artwork with the same name.^[7]

• Iraqi art
• List of Iraqi artists
• Amal Al Zahawi
• For Al-Malaika collections of poems, see also the Wikipedia entry in Arabic.