Bedouin Nabati Poetry in the Arabian Peninsula

"I met people who memorized 20,000 verses"

For centuries, Nabati poetry has been a touchstone of identity and tribal values in the Arabian Peninsula.

NYU Abu Dhabi Senior Humanities Fellow Marcel Kurpershoek, a former Dutch diplomat, traveled to the Arabian desert in the 1980s to record oral poetry and stories with the Bedouin people. He wrote a book about his fieldwork, which inspired a TV series called The Last Bedouin.