Luay Hamza Abbas

Luay Hamza Abbas (born 1965) is a noted Iraqi writer. He was born in Basra and studied at Basra University, completing a PhD in 2002. He now teaches literary criticism at Basra University. Abbas has published several volumes of short stories and one novel.

Abbas' short stories have been published in English translation by the literary magazine Banipal, which featured him in an issue devoted to contemporary Iraqi authors. In 2010, the National Endowment of the Arts awarded a grant to academic and translator Yasmeen Hanoosh to translate Abbas' short story collection Closing His Eyes (2008). The title story of this volume was translated earlier in Banipal 27 and also won the 2006 Kikah Best Short Story Award in London.