PUBLISHER / EDITOR Margaret Obank DEPUTY EDITOR Samuel Shimon COVER ARTIST Zena Assi CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Sinan Antoon Fadhil al-Azzawi Issa J Boullata Peter Clark Khaled Mattawa Anton Shammas Paul Starkey Saadi Youssef Mona Zaki CONSULTING EDITORS Etel Adnan Roger Allen Mohammed Bennis Gamal el-Ghitani Marilyn Hacker Erdmute Heller Herbert Mason Yasir Suleiman Susannah Tarbush Saif al-Rahbi EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS: Shela Sheikh, Zuzana Kratka Deborah Horton LAYOUT: Banipal Publishing
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Tel: +44 (0)20 8568 9747 Fax: +44 (0)20 8568 8509 editorial email: editor@banipal.co.uk subscriptions: subscribe@banipal.co.uk website: www.banipal.co.uk PRINTED BY Short Run Press Ltd Bittern Road, Sowton Ind. Est. EXETER EX2 7LW ISSN: 1461-5363 Photographs not accredited have been donated, photographers unknown All material © Banipal, authors, translators and artists. All rights reserved. Contact the publisher for permission to reproduce any of the material published here.
Suppor t ing Patron THANI AL-SUWAIDI
CONTENTS No 32, Summer 2008
2 EDITORIAL
3 TRIBUTE TO ALBERT COSSERY 1913–2008 4 Mohamed Salah al-Azab – Excerpt from Repeated Stopping 13 Ahmad Ali El-Zein – Excerpt from The Edge of Oblivion 22 Abdulaziz Al Farsi – Excerpt from Weeping Earth . . . Laughing Saturn 34 May Menassa – Excerpt from Walking in the Dust 43 TRIBUTE TO DORIS KILIAS 1942–2008 44 Ahmad Yamani – Two Poems 49 Mohamed Metwalli – Three Poems 53 FEATURE ON CONTEMPORARY SYRIAN LITERATURE – Part 2 54 Mamdouh Adwan – Four Poems 62 Haidar Haidar – A short story Pollen 74 Maher Sharafeddine – The Hand An excerpt from a novel 88 Mohja Kahf – A Poem for Hamsa Newmark’s Sixieth Birthday 95 Adel Karasholi – Twelve Poems 102 Haifa Bitar – A short story Love
106 Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi – Excerpt from Seventh Day of Creation
ATRAVELLING TALE 126 Mahmoud Shukair – Windows of Jerusalem
INTERVIEW WITH ATRANSLATOR 136 Hartmut Fähndrich – Arab Literature is now on the map
BOOK REVIEWS 141 Khaled Hroub Wahat al-Ghuroub [Sunset Oasis] by Baha Taher 146 Judith Kazantzis Tender Spot by Naomi Shibab Nye 148 Lulu Norman Banquet of Lies by Amin Zaoui 150 BOOKS IN BRIEF
EVENTS 154 Ledbury & London: Syrian Poets in the UK 156 Coburg, Germany: Inaugural Rückert Prize 159 CONTRIBUTORS, including TRANSLATORS
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Banipal takes its name from Ashurbanipal, last great king of Assyria and patron of the arts, whose outstanding achievement was to assemble in Nineveh, from all over his empire, the first systematically organised library in the ancient Middle East. The thousands of clay tablets of Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian writings included the famous Mesopotamian epics of the Creation, the Flood, and Gilgamesh, many folk tales, fables, proverbs, prayers and omen texts. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
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