RIP Yahya Hassan

May 11, 2020 4:30 AM

Yahya Hassan is / was a young Danish-Palestinian poet.
His most notable work, Yahya Hassan, was the best-selling debut poetry collection in Denmark, and has been printed in more than 120,000 copies.
He died last week at the age of 24.
Here's Poems of Rage, an interview with English subtitles
posted by growabrain (6 comments total)

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posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:48 AM on May 11, 2020

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posted by Alensin at 9:14 AM on May 11, 2020

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I met him once, we were performing at the same poetry festival in Helsinki. This must’ve been in 2014, when he was at the height of his fame in the Nordic countries. I was waiting to do a sound check and he came out of the venue to smoke, and we chatted a while. He seemed every inch the teenager, and I can’t imagine that the intensity of the scrutiny he was under in Denmark was good for his psyche.
posted by Kattullus at 10:34 AM on May 11, 2020 [5 favorites]

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posted by JoeXIII007 at 10:36 AM on May 11, 2020

This is the second Danish poet I've come to discover in the space of one month, thanks to MeFi. I'm immediately impressed with both (despite not speaking the language, I find myself captivated by the soundscapes they each created) and very sad to learn of Y. Hassan's untimely demise.
posted by progosk at 11:28 AM on May 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

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posted by bouvin at 11:06 PM on May 11, 2020