Sheikh Hamdan mourns the death of celebrated Iraqi writer Khalid Al Qashtini

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council, mourned the death of Iraqi writer Khalid Al Qashtini, stressing that the Arab media has lost a symbol of creativity.

Sheikh Hamdan said on Twitter, "We extend our sincere condolences and sympathy to the family, relatives, companions and readers of Khalid Al Qashtini, the Iraqi journalist and writer, and the owner of the creative pen, who enriched our Arab world with his publications. With his departure, the Arab media loses a symbol of creativity.”

The Iraqi writer Khalid Al Qashtini died on Monday at the age of 94.

He had a remarkable career in media work, during which he published several books in both English and Arabic, covering various fields such as politics, drama and humour.

Khalid Al Qashtini was born in the city of Baghdad in 1929, and graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, Department of Painting in 1952, After a year, he graduated from the Faculty of Law, then he obtained a government scholarship to study drawing and theatrical design in Britain, so he moved to London in late 1953, where he studied these two subjects until 1957.

After returning from London, Qashtini taught these two subjects at the Institute of Fine Arts, then left Iraq again in 1959, and joined the British Radio at the end of the same year, and stayed there until 1964.

He then resigned and devoted himself to writing and translating.

He wrote several plays in both Arabic and English, and his play “Under the Shadows of Unemployment” was shown in Baghdad in 1959. His style is characterized by sarcasm and humour in dealing with social and political issues. He has been writing since the eighties in the London newspaper, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.

He won the Journalism Column Award presented by the Arab Press Award in UAE in 2015.