Arab women poets have been writing since the earliest of times, yet for millennia, their diwans (collected poems) were kept in the shadows.

Spanning more than five thousand years, from the pre-Islamic to the Andalusian periods, Classical Poems by Arab Women presents rarely seen work by over sixty women writers who boldly refused to be silenced. From the sorrowful eulogies of Khansa to the gleeful scorn of Wallada bint al-Mustakfi, this collection offers a rich excursion into the vibrant, exclusively female worlds of pleasure, passion and pain, suppressed for centuries by religious and political bigotry.

With many poems shown here for the first time, this bespoke edition celebrates feminine wit and desire and pays homage to the significant contribution Arab women have made to the literary tradition.