My father, Khalid Kishtainy, who has died aged 93, was a London-based, Iraqi-born writer, broadcaster and translator who was known across the Middle East for his satirical works. His column in a leading Arabic newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, ran for over 30 years, until he reached his 90s.
Khalid came to Britain in the early 1950s on an art scholarship. In the late 50s he joined the BBC Arabic Service and from the 1960s began pursuing a career as a writer and translator. In the 1970s and 80s he was an adviser to the Iraqi Cultural Centre in London. He wrote for many publications around the Middle East and published a variety of books in Arabic and English, including Arab Political Humour (1985), Verdict in Absentia: A Study of the Palestine Case as Represented to the Western World (1969) and Tales from Old Baghdad (1997).
