Veteran Iraqi storyteller Jumaa Al Lami passed away on Thursday, April 17, 2025, leaving behind a rich legacy of literary and cultural contributions.

As one of Iraq’s pioneering storytellers, Al Lami spent decades shaping the Arab literary scene. He lived in the UAE from 1980 until his passing and worked for many years with Al Khaleej and Al Ittihad newspapers.

Jumaa Ajil Darwish Rashid Al-Lami was born on July 1, 1947, in Maysan Governorate, Iraq. He moved to Baghdad in 1959 and, in 1963, was sentenced to 12 years in prison, of which he served six consecutive years in various prisons and detention centres across Iraq. In 1979, he left Iraq and, a year later, found a new home in the UAE, where he lived from 1980 until his passing.

Published Works of Juma Al Lami
Short Story Collections:
• Alishin (1968)
• Who Killed the Wisdom of Shami (1976)
• Trilogy (1979)
• On the Trail
• Iraqi Tragedy – An Anthology
Novels:
• Majnoun Zainab (1998)
• The Lame Maqam (1999)
• The First Trilogy (2000)
• Zaynab’s Eyes
Poetry:
• Ibn Maysan in His Solitude
Literary Texts and Essays:
• Abdullah Ibin Furat – Texts
• The Longings of the Babylonian Lady – Texts
• Freedom and Culture – Texts on Freedom of Conscience
• Memory of the Future – Freedom and Culture
• Future Memory – Sharjah Sockets
Sharjah Series:
• Sharjah Book – 1: Ibn Maysan in His Solitude – Poetic Texts
• Sharjah Notebook – 2: City of Wisdom – Cultural Diaries on the Personality of Place
Memoir / Personal Reflections:
• The Book of Beings: A Personal History of the Brave and the Murderers
Cultural, Historical and Political Studies:
• Zayed: Marib’s Dream – A Cultural-Historical Study of the Arab Personality
• Camels in the United Arab Emirates – A Cultural, Historical Literary and Anthropological Study
• The Agricultural Issue in Iraq – A Study on the Political Economy of the Iraqi Countryside
• The Case of a Revolution – Conflict and Unity in the Palestinian Liberation Organization

Juma Al Lami was the recipient of several prestigious awards throughout his literary career. He won first prize for short story at the First Conference of Young Writers in Baghdad in 1977. In 2006, he was honoured with the Sultan Qaboos Award for Cultural Creativity in the short story category.
Al Lami also received the Baghdad Medal for Creativity in 2011 and the International Golden Phoenix Award in 2007, further underscoring his lasting impact on Arabic literature and cultural thought.