Kholod Saghir

Kholod Saghir (b. 1977, Sweden) is a writer and translator from Arabic and French, founder and artistic director of the Uppsala International Literature Festival.
She is the founder and project manager of Shaerat, an ongoing poetry and translation exchange project since 2012 between female poets in the Middle East and Sweden with the purpose to make visible female intellectuals in the Middle East. Since 2024 she is the manager of The Shaerat School of creative writing for women in Iraq.
Saghir has been editor-in-chief of Swedish PEN:s international literature magazine PEN/Opp. She is a jury member of the Swedish Vi:s literature price. As a literary activist Saghir has been working to highlight amongst others Ukrainian and Palestinian literature by editing several anthologies such as ”Under Ukrainas öppna himmel – röster från ett krig” and guest editing the Swedish literary magazine 20tal:s latest issue number ”Motstånd & medmänsklighet” on Palestinian literature.
She has studied political science with a specialization in democracy at Uppsala University, as well as literature and French, at the Sorbonne and other universities.