Magazine of Modern Arab Literature
Publisher / Editor MARGARET OBANK
Assistant Editor SAMUEL SHIMON
Contributing Editors KHALED MATTAWA
SA’ADI YOUSEF A K EL JANABI AMJAD NASSER PETER CLARK FADHIL AL-AZZAWI
Consulting Editors ETEL ADNAN NAGUIB MAHFOUZ MOHAMMED BENNIS SARGON BOULUS GAMAL EL-GHITANI HISHAM SHARABI MARILYN HACKER HERBERT MASON ERDMUTE HELLER
ROGER ALLEN KHALED AL-KARAKI
SAIF AL-RAHBI MOHAMMAD ALI FARHAT
HILMY SALEM YASIR SULEIMAN
Copy Editor DEBORAH HORTON
Layout BEN BRANAGAN
Covers FAISAL LAIBI SAHI
Address BANIPAL PO Box 22300 LONDON W13 8ZQ Tel: +44 (0)20 8568 9747 Fax: +44 (0)20 8568 8509 e-mail:editor@banipal.co.uk website: http://www.banipal.co.uk
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ISSN: 1461-5363
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
Photographs not accredited have been donated, photographers unknown © All material: Banipal, authors, translators and artists. All rights reserved.
2 EDITORIAL
CONTENTS No 14, Summer 2002
3 FEATURE on IRAQI WRITERS
3 Ferial Ghazoul: A Forest of Symbols: Iraqi Fiction Today 5 Mohammad Khodayyir: short story Yusif’s Tales 6 Shakir Mustafa on Khodayyir: The grocery store of memory 10 Jabbar Yassin Hussein: short stories 15 Shakir Mustafa introduces Mahdi Issa al-Saqr 16 Mahdi Issa al-Saqr: two short stories Breaking Away, The Returnee 20 Mayselun Hadi: short story Her Realm of the Real 22 Ibrahim Ahmad: short story The Man wih the Umbrella 25 Fuad al-Takarli excerpt from the novel Ring of Sand
30 Paul Chaoul: Poem – excerpt from Leaves of the Absent One introduced and translated by Abdul Kader El Janabi
33 FEATURE on SALIM BARAKAT
34 Subhi Hadidi: Salim Barakat, poet and novelist 36 Salim Barakat: Three poems 37 Salim Barakat: Excerpts from The Iron Grasshopper 38 Tetz Rooke: Understanding the Landscape 41 Salim Barakat: Excerpts from Sound the Trumpet! 43 Salma K Jayyusi: Original, Stunning, Disturbing 44 Salim Barakat: Three poems 45 Interview with Salim Barakat: Criss-crossed realities like a game with no rules by Nasir Mu’nis and Salah Abdel Latif 48 James Kirkup on Barakat’s novel Sages of Darkness with translations of exerpts
51 Miral al-Tahawy: Excerpt from novel Blue Aubergine
56 Habib Tengour: Excerpt from the novel The Old Man of the Mountain
58 Pierre Joris: A poetic voice of the post-colonial era
60 Hadia Sa’id: Three short stories
62 Sayed Ragab: Short story Rat
66 Rafik Schami: Two short stories The Scooter and The Birth
71 REVIEWS 71 James Kirkup Le Poème de Tyr by Abbas Beydoun with translated excerpt
74 Zahia Salhi
The trilogy Algerie by Mohammed Dib
76 Tetz Rooke
Interpreting the Self ed. Dwight Reynolds
77 Margaret Obank Arabia of the Bedouins by Marcel Kurpershoek 78 Peter Clark The Road from Damascus by Scott C. Davis
Three Journeys in the Levant by Shusha Guppy
79 EVENTS
Arab Voices in the Diaspora Conference
80 CONTRIBUTORS and TRANSLATORS
BANIPAL is published three times a year – Spring, Summer and Autumn. Translators are acknowledged on each piece. The source language of the work is noted only when it is not Arabic.
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