Muhammad Taha Al-Qaddal

Al-Qaddal died on July 4, 2021, at the age of seventy from symptoms of cancer, in Al-Amal Hospital in Doha, Qatar.

On 22 October 2021, the 16th Khartoum International Book Fair was launched, but came to a premature end a few days later, due to the October 2021 Sudanese coup d'etat. The organisers had prepared a commemoration of Al-Qaddal's work "for his influential poetic mastery, startling images, wordsmithery, and verbal elegance."

Muhammad Taha Al-Qaddal (Arabic: محمد طه القدّال, Sudanese Arabic pronunciation: muˈħammad ˈtˤɑhɑ al gaddɑːl; 12 December 1951 – 4 July 2021) was a Sudanese poet. He wrote Arabic lyric poetry in contemporary Sudanese style, and some of his poems were put to music by popular Sudanese singers. Al-Qaddal began his literary career at the end of the 1960s and became known in the early 1980s by expressing social and political messages through his verses. His poetry reflecting the suffering of Sudanese in everyday life found special resonance during the time of the Islamist military governments of the late 1990s and has been popular beyond the Sudanese revolution of 2018/19.

Al-Qaddal was born on December 12, 1951, in the village of Helweh, Gezira State. He first studied medicine, but later graduated in management from the University of Khartoum. At the beginning of his professional life, he worked for Sudan National Television and later as a cultural manager for DAL cultural forum in Khartoum. At the same time, he devoted his time to writing and publicly reciting poetry.