Ninos Nirari

Apr. 21

Since April 2, 2012, the Assyrian Cultural Foundation is fortunate to have the talented Ninos Nirari Yousif on its staff.  He was born in Mosul, Iraq in 1954, but moved around with his family to other surrounding areas as a boy.  In 1965, Ninos Nirari moved to Kirkuk, Iraq, where he entered an Assyrian school and first began his education in the Assyrian language.  He attended middle school at Al-Sharqeya and high school at Al-Hikma.  In 1976, he began his studies in math at the University of Sulaymaniyah, and became involved with the Assyrian Cultural Association there.  His activities with the Assyrian Cultural Association included teaching the Assyrian language and giving lectures in Assyrian history and literature.

 

Ninos Nirari left Iraq in 1979 and temporarily lived in Greece, where he helped co-found an Assyrian school in Kalamaki.  In 1980, he arrived in the United States.  He graduated from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1985 with a degree in Electronics.

 

Ninos Nirari is an expert in the Assyrian language, and uses his knowledge to the best of his ability.  Since 1980, he has released 8 cassette/CD recordings of both his nationalistic and love poems.  In 1993, he wrote a biography about Agha Patros, an Assyrian military leader during WWI, which was translated into Arabic by Fadil Pola in 1996.

 

Ninos Nirari recently published many of his poems into two books.  The first book is a collection of his nationalistic poems, and was published in 2019 under the title, A Spark of Poems (Bulbata D-Moshkhate).  The second was published in 2020 under the title, Harp of Night (Qitara d-Layle), and is a compilation of his love poems.  He plans to publish another book soon, which will be a mixture of both nationalistic and love poems.

 

In addition to his books, Ninos Nirari has also published numerous articles and poems in various Assyrian and Arabic magazines and websites.  He also makes frequent appearances on both Assyrian television and radio stations, and has served as a host for both mediums in the past.  Currently, he hosts a weekly radio program on Saturday afternoons from 3:00 to 4:30 PM (Central Standard Time) on 1590 AM in Chicago.