Apocalypse arabe

About this book

Product Description Poetry. Middle Eastern studies. Translated from the French by the author. Reprinted with a new foreward by Jalal Toufic. "This book, a masterwork of the dislocations and radiant outcries of the Arab world, reaffirms Etel Adnan, who authored the great poem, Jebu, as among the foremost poets of the French Language. THE ARAB APOCALYPSE is an immersion into a rapture of chaos clawing towards destiny, and nullified hope refusing its zero. Is is also the journey of soul through the cartography of a global immediacy rarely registered by maps, replete with signposts like hieroglyphs in a storm of shrapnel and broken glass. And above all it is a book that, though capable of being read in its orderly sequence, has so surrendered to 'being there,' it can rivet the sensibility to the Middle Eastern condition at any point in the text--so rapid are its mutations, so becoming its becomingness--like a wisdom book or a book of Changes"--Jack Hirschman. "It has a power and intensity that few poets today can muster—only Allen Ginsberg's Howl comes to mind."—Alice Molloy "The power of Adnan's language and imagery reminds us that she is indeed one of the most significant post-modern poets in contemporary Arab culture."—Kamal Boullatta "THE ARAB APOCALYPSE is, to date, Adnan's most triumphant battle with the exactness of words."—Douglas Powell "The poem invokes a mythic past of Gilgamesh, Tammouz, and Ishtar to presage a present that resists narration, THE ARAB APOCALYPSE contests an uncritical reflection on the immediate historical past."—Barbara Harlow Review "The Arab Apocalypse is a catastrophic poem of cosmic disorder, whose very composition is radically disjointed...The primordial chaos of the opening sections takes horrifying shape as the poem develops, finding form first in dismembered humanity and acquiring historical reality as the city of Beirut first, then the Palestinian refugee camp Tell Zaatar are delineated through cataclysmic referencing...The Arab Apocalypse contests an uncritical refection on the immediate historical past..." -- Barbara Harlow, American Book Review "this book, a master work of the dislocations and radiant outcries of the Arab World, reaffirms Etel Adnan as one of the foremost poets." -- Jack Hirschman, poet The Arab Apocalypse is, to date, Adnan's most triumphant battle with the exactness of words. -- Poetry Flash About the Author Etel Adnan is an American poet, writer, and painter of Lebanese origin. Her poetic voice defies easy classification. The range of her interests moves from the lyrical and personal to the political tragedies of the Arab East, reflecting as well her American experience. Considered as a major poet in the United States and abroad, Adnan's work has been translated into several languages; and her novel, Sitt Marie Rose, is taught in more than thirty universities and colleges around the world. Andnan's contribution is significant not just to American culture, but to a body of world literature that is becoming increasingly visible and important. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. the sun is a traitor traitor is the sun FOR EVER the sun spits the blood it sucked from scorpions the sun drills holes in the brain of the Palestinian the sun unites Arabs against the Arabs the sun married its mother to better crucify its son... History has pushed the accelerator of its power to infinity villages fell as grains of dust roses are dynamos the sun has emptied all courtyards drank the water's fountain Gilgamesh has razed the Walls the fields refuse to shelter the harvest the sun has set on the banks of the Orontes and the Tigris for ever Gilgamesh has returned in an airplane to water us with petroleum We washed our eyes in the solar inferno Blind are the Arab kings who howl in the night....