"Middle East" Literature

[tiganeasca]

I'm still fairly new to this site, but I've come up against an issue that seems fundamental to me and wonder what the best answer is.

We recently had a several post exchange in the "Recently Begun Books" thread about Egyptian literature. But when I went to see what there is on literature of other countries in the region from say, Tunisia to "Persia," I find boards for European, Asian & Oceanic, Americas, and African. Yes, I realize the search function is useful and helpful. But I wonder whether that portion of the world doesn't deserve its own board. Certainly there are differences within the various national literatures of Yemen and Libya, Iraq and Morocco. And yes, I realize that African technically comprehends Tunisia to Egypt. But I don't think many would think "European" when searching for Iranian or Iraqi literature. I think that Middle East, while perhaps not the best or most accurate category, might nevertheless be good enough and recognizable enough to use as a catch-all for these literatures.

This is not meant as a snide, "what was wrong with you?" kind of critique. It's a post that's a question.

 

[kpjayan]

Some new names from a territory I haven't read much.. United Arab Emirates !

How Isobel Abulhoul wrote the book on literature from the UAE

Ahead of the Emirates Literary Festival's return, its founder speaks about the evolution of the country's literary scene in the five decades she's lived there

www.thenationalnews.com

Five female Emirati writers shaping the country's literary scene

Ahlam Bolooki, director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, says there is no better time to honour their contributions than on Emirati Women's Day

www.thenationalnews.com

 

[tiganeasca]

I can add one more from my collection: Thani al- Suwaidi, The Diesel. In all honesty, I've tried it a couple times and gotten nowhere--which is depressing considering that it's less than 100 pages, I think. Here's a review from Three Percent (a translation site from the University of Rochester which publishes the Open Letter series.

 

[kpjayan]

Firdawsi and all..

Why Alexander the Great was treated with hostility in Zoroastrian literature

Even in Firdawsi’s ‘Shahnamah’, he is described by Ardshir, founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as ‘the evil-minded tyrant’.

scroll.in

 

[kpjayan]

Literature: 4 outstanding Arab women authors - KAWA

August is the Women in Translation Month. To commemorate women's contribution to world literature, we take a look at four Arab women authors who have revolutionized Arab literature and the Arab world itself.

kawa-news.com

Apart from Nawal Saadawi, I havent heard of the rest..

 

[tiganeasca]

Literature: 4 outstanding Arab women authors - KAWA

August is the Women in Translation Month. To commemorate women's contribution to world literature, we take a look at four Arab women authors who have revolutionized Arab literature and the Arab world itself.

kawa-news.com

Apart from Nawal Saadawi, I havent heard of the rest..

I'm with you, Jayan. And I thought I had a reasonably good idea of contemporary writers in Arabic. ?

 

[Hamishe22]

I will try to use this space to occasionally post about great Iranian writers and poets.

I will begin by asking you all to read Ahmad Mahmoud's The Neighbors. It's in my (and many other people's) the greatest Iranian novel ever written. It's been banned and not officially published since the 1979 revolution, but it's one of the bestselling books in the form of illegal copies sold on the street of Enghelab Street (where most bookstores are). It's a coming of age story about a teenager in the south of Iran at the time of the Ajax coup and oil nationalization movement. It narrates the story of the entire community and it's a masterpiece of realism and complicated characters dealing with adolescence and Iran's political climate at the same time. It deals frankly with sexual attraction themes and this is why it's banned.

I will post more in the coming days.

 

[Hamishe22]

Nosrat Rahmani (1930-2000) is my favorite modern Persian poet. This summary from Wikipedia is nice

"His poetry is the poetry of the stubborn, humiliated and revolting down-town people in Tehran's slums; he never forgets his concern for the plight of the urban poor. His memoirs entitled, The Man Lost in the Dust (1957), provide an emotional account of the life of an addict. During the 1960s and 1970s, Rahmani was especially popular among the youth. As a whole, his poetry is dramatic in structure and fantastic in effect, often attempting to recapture the past by poeticizing its recollections."

Rahmani was very revolutionary for his time, using disgusting imagery, non-poetic similes or metaphors, and vulgar language which were completely unheard of art the time. Despite this, they're still very emotionally vulnerable and intimate at times. He represents more than any other poet the desperation of the post 1953-coup era, where idealism was defeated and people felt politically powerless and repressed.

He's not translated into English, which is surprising and kinda outrageous. In order to make sure guys that you have some idea of his poems, I quickly translated three of them. Please keep in mind that I'm not a professional translator and these do a huge disservice to the original.

A Silent City
It's a city in silence and on the walls of the city
Lean I, the wandering drunkard
I whisper to myself this tale
Either there is what there is not, or there is not what there is
My lips are branded with a kiss one night
She scarred my heart and we were acquainted
We made a vow with one glance and she
Knew me not! Then we went our separate ways
It's a city in the silence of the feathers of a crow
Stranded on the roof of the empty hut
It is frozen, the cat on the crooked gutter
A man dead on the road, a man's run away

This Is Not a Poem
This is not a poem
It's the extinguished fire of a temple
This is not a poem
It's the tale of the emotion of stones
This is not a poem
It's the image of a mirage in the desert
This is not a poem
It's the vague life of colors

If it were a poem
It would not have landed on my dry lips
If it were a poem
It would not have stolen away from my cold heart
If it were a poem
It would revealed my pain
If it were a poem
It would not have dragged a razor on my wound

This is not a poem
It's a corpse hung from gallows
This is not a poem
It's black in white
This is not a poem
It's white in black

If it were a poem
It would be friends with instruments and songs
If it were a poem
I would have erased it from my heart
If it were a poem
It would have been sung on the lips of friends
If it were a poem
I would have composed it one midnight

An Unfinished Poem
Not she with me
Not I with her
She made not a vow with me, nor I with her
The moon did not shine through a gap in a cloud on a lake
The snake of an arm did not slither around a body
No...
A night of sorrow
A lonely heart
Silent lips

No poem on my lips
No name on my tongue
My two eyes gazing at the path of the sorrowful chest
To a hope ending in hopelessness
I would close the darkness of the road to my eyes
I would seek my salvation on the detours

Not I with anyone
Not anyone with me
And I was utterly alone, far from every acquaintance
I was rubbing a bitter song hard on the stone of my lips
An unknown beckoning broke my name under its teeth
And sang me an unfinished poem:
-- Come with me

Since that night they say all around the city
-- You with her?
But I know too well
Not she with me
Not I with her

 

[kpjayan]

Few names from the Saudi Literature front. Not rally familiar with the writing from Saudi, except reading a book of Raaja Alsanea.

Why better stories and translations are needed for Saudi literature to thrive

Time to turn page on stereotypes of dunes and veiled women that dominate books to better reflect kingdom's rich literary heritage, urge authors

www.thenationalnews.com

 

[tiganeasca]

I can contribute a small bit re Saudi literature. To the best of my recollection, I’ve read works by three Saudi authors: Abdallah al-Nasser’s The Tree & Other Stories which I thought a complete waste of time; Ahmed Abodehman’s The Belt, which I found pleasant and moderately enjoyable (but no more); and several books by Abdelrahman Munif, including Endings, which I enjoyed, and Cities of Salt, which I enjoyed a great deal and found impressive. Sitting on the shelves, waiting patiently for their turn to be read, are Turki al-Hamad’s Adama: A Novel and Yousef al-Mohaimeed’s Wolves of the Crescent Moon, which I believe is well-regarded.

 

[Daniel del Real]

I can contribute a small bit re Saudi literature. To the best of my recollection, I’ve read three authors: Abdallah al-Nasser’s The Tree & Other Stories which I thought a complete waste of time, Ahmed Abodehman’s The Belt, which I found pleasant and moderately enjoyable, but no more and a couple of books by Abdelrahman Munif, including Endings, which I enjoyed, and Cities of Salt, which I enjoyed a great deal and found impressive. Sitting on the shelves, waiting patiently for their turn to be read, are Turki al-Hamad’s Adama: A Novel and Yousef al-Mohaimeed’s Wolves of the Crescent Moon, which I believe is well-regarded.

Your knowledge of "peripheral" literatures always amazes me Dave, thank you so much.
I've never read an Arabian author, not counting some stories of the One Thousand and One Nights. I just found out Cities of Salt was translated to Spanish directly from the Arabic and found a very decent priced copy on the internet which I'm about to order. Quite large novel but if you liked it I'm sure it's all worth it.

 

[Leseratte]

I can contribute a small bit re Saudi literature. To the best of my recollection, I’ve read three authors: Abdallah al-Nasser’s The Tree & Other Stories which I thought a complete waste of time, Ahmed Abodehman’s The Belt, which I found pleasant and moderately enjoyable, but no more and a couple of books by Abdelrahman Munif, including Endings, which I enjoyed, and Cities of Salt, which I enjoyed a great deal and found impressive. Sitting on the shelves, waiting patiently for their turn to be read, are Turki al-Hamad’s Adama: A Novel and Yousef al-Mohaimeed’s Wolves of the Crescent Moon, which I believe is well-regarded.

Thought you were sitting in Fernando Pessoa's favorite caffe in Lisbon, tiga.

 

[tiganeasca]

Thought you were sitting in Fernando Pessoa's favorite caffe in Lisbon, tiga.

I was, I was.

But, sadly, all good things come to an end and we had to come home. (Well, actually, my wife has to go back to work. I could have stayed but, since I'm a nice guy, I decided to come back with her and keep her company. Who knows? Maybe she wanted me to stay in Portugal! I have a few pictures to share--Camões's sarcophagus, among other things--but need to sort through things.)

 

[tiganeasca]

Your knowledge of "peripheral" literatures always amazes me Dave, thank you so much.
I've never read an Arabian author, not counting some stories of the One Thousand and One Nights. I just found out Cities of Salt was translated to Spanish directly from the Arabic and found a very decent priced copy on the internet which I'm about to order. Quite large novel but if you liked it I'm sure it's all worth it.

As you know, Cities of Salt is just one of a trilogy. I am still hoping to read the other two works in the series, but I may have to live past 100 to do it. So many books....

P.S. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Daniel del Real]

As you know, Cities of Salt is just one of a trilogy. I am still hoping to read the other two works in the series, but I may have to live past 100 to do it. So many books....

P.S. Thanks for the kind words.

I didn't know it was a trilogy! Yes, so many books.

 

[Daniel del Real]

As you know, Cities of Salt is just one of a trilogy. I am still hoping to read the other two works in the series, but I may have to live past 100 to do it. So many books....

P.S. Thanks for the kind words.

I just found out it's not a trilogy but a set of five novels! ?
Apparently only the first three are translated to English

 

[Hamishe22]

For those of you who can read French, Mehdi Yazdani Khorram's first work in translation has appeared. He's a major contemporary Iranian writer and I'm sure many of you would be interested in checking him out.

 

[tiganeasca]

For those of you who can read French, Mehdi Yazdani Khorram's first work in translation has appeared. He's a major contemporary Iranian writer and I'm sure many of you would be interested in checking him out.

Interesting! The description somewhat calls to mind a powerful novel about the Iran-Iraq War, The Corpse Washer, by Sinan Antoon. I was pretty impressed with that work and it has led me to read several other (also impressive) works by Antoon (my review of The Book of Collateral Damage is here). This looks intriguing as well, though I am afraid my French is probably not good enough, sadly. Thanks for posting it!