From Brooke Allen's "READER'S DIARY" column on The Barnes & Noble Review
Tonight the earth has bid all its sins
farewell. The snow's pallid piety
conceals the earth-dweller's blasphemies.
This silvery mask on nature's black face
is the world's most beautiful lie.
--from "False Dawn"
This
arresting image of snow is the work of an Iranian poet, Nader Naderpour, and
has been recently translated from the Persian. It is just one of countless
delights to be found in Tablet & Pen:
Literary Landscapes From the Modern Middle East, an anthology edited by Reza Aslan in conjunction
with the online magazine Words Without
Borders. The project was born out of a conviction that we Americans can no
longer afford to know so very little about the Middle East, the ancient,
infinitely complex society in which we are now deeply mired. "[F]rom the 'civilizing
mission' of European colonialism to the 'clash of civilization' mentality of
today," Aslan comments, "the West's perception of the Middle East as
a mysterious and exotic, savage and erotic place has changed little in the more
than two centuries since Napoleon's fleet set sail for Egypt. The aim of this
book is to provide a different, more authentic perception of this rich and
complex region, an image not fashioned by the descriptions of invaders, but
rather one that arises from the diverse literatures of its most acclaimed poets
and writers."
Working with three
regional editors and seventy-seven translators, Aslan has brought forth an
admirably comprehensive collection of poems, short stories, novel excerpts,
essays, and memoirs from countries stretching from Morocco to Iran, translated
from Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, and Persian. All these pieces date from the last
century or so; many have never until now been translated into English. Together,
they convey a literary treasure of which most readers in the West are scarcely
aware. "'[W]hile it may be too much to expect that a collection of
literature can reframe perceptions of an entire region," Aslan writes, "it
is our hope that this book can go some way toward providing a new paradigm for
viewing the mosaic that is the modern Middle East."
Aslan begins in the years
just before the First World War, with the Ottoman Empire heading toward its
final decline and the British Raj already running into trouble in India. Ottoman
literary traditions were becoming formalized and stilted; innovators like
Khalil Gibran urged writers to revitalize their native language. "Let your
national zeal," he wrote, "spur you to depict the mysteries of pain
and the miracles of joy that characterize life in the East, for it is better
for you and for the Arabic language to adopt the simplest events in your
surroundings and clothe them with the fabric of your imagination than to
translate the most beautiful and the most respected of what the Westerners have
written." Western genres like the novel and the short story, hitherto
unknown in the East, were now being adapted to local needs. Husayn Haykal's Zaynab (1913) was the first Arab novel;
Tawfiq al-Hakim brought the genre further with his Diary of a Country Prosecutor, excerpted here in a translation by
Abba Eban. In India, the poet Miraji would also revolutionize his genre by
fusing Indian and Western styles.
Imperialism and the scars
of colonial rule are easily recognized as the common thread running through the
works in this anthology. Throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central
and South Asia, the twentieth century witnessed the fever of revolt and the
ecstasy of independence. "Rise up!" exhorted Muhammad Iqbal, the
great Punjabi poet who inspired the idea and the birth of Pakistan; "…The
rule of the people is close at hand/Erase all traces of the ancient Raj!" The
wares on offer in Tablet & Pen
illustrate what Aslan calls "the myriad ways in which literature became a
tool for forming national identities," and in perusing its pages we
witness poets and fiction writers not only expressing the aspirations of their
people but even helping to create them. The enormously influential Turkish poet
Nâzim Hikmet was one of those who contributed to a new conception of
patriotism. "I love my country:/I have swung on its plane trees, I have
stayed in its prisons." His poem "Since I Was Thrown Inside," a
reflection on what has gone on in his world during the ten years he has spent
in prison, is characteristic of the era: to be incarcerated was practically a
badge of honor for those involved in the struggle of throwing off the colonial
yoke. Sa'adat Hasan Manto's memoir For
Freedom's Sake (excerpted here and translated from the Urdu) sums up the
era's fervent mood:
People
chanted slogans, staged demonstrations, and were sent to prison by the
hundreds. Courting arrest had become a favorite pastime: you were apprehended
in the morning and released by the evening. You were tried in the court and
thrown in jail for a few months. You came out, shouted another slogan, and got
arrested all over again.
Those days
were so full of life!
But after the euphoria of
independence there came the let-down of reality, as the erstwhile colonial
tyrants were replaced with new, native-born ones. In many countries the writers
whose words had helped create the new states soon became their regimes' most
vocal critics. The Pakistani Faiz Ahmed Faiz, for instance, was imprisoned as a
dissident in the 1950s; his poems "Freedom's Dawn (August 1947)," "August
1952," and "Bury Me Under Your Pavements," beautifully
translated from the Urdu by V. G. Kiernan, encapsulate the pain of bruised
ideals.
This leprous daybreak, dawn night's fangs have mangled—
This is not that long-looked-for break of day,
Not that clear dawn in quest of which those comrades
Set out, believing that in heaven's wide void
Somewhere must be the stars' last halting-place,
Somewhere the verge of night's slow-washing tide,
Somewhere an anchorage for the ship of heartache.
--from "Freedom's Dawn (August 1947)"
At mid-century, Turkish
writers entered what is now remembered as a Golden Age of literature, with the
last of the Ottoman literary flourishes swept aside. Attention was paid to the
poor and obscure, and writing about village life became a political act in
itself: an excerpt from Yasar Kamal's Mehmed,
My Hawk provides a marvelous example of the genre, while Ahmet Hamdi
Tanpinar's A Mind At Peace recounts
the doings of deracinated urban Istanbullus.
In the Arab world a new "postcolonial" generation of writers included
some world-class figures, including the Syrian poet Adonis, whose "Grave
for New York" is excerpted here, and the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib
Mahfouz -- represented in this anthology by a brilliant segment from The Seventh Heaven.
The 1950s, '60s, and '70s
saw Iran between two revolutions, dealing with issues decidedly different from
those that faced the Arab world. Aslan has included some superb examples of
Iranian literature. Houshang Golshiri's famous story "My China Doll"
is here, as is Goli Taraghi's "The Grand Lady of My Soul" -- an
unforgettable view of the early days of the 1979 revolution seen through the
detached gaze of a skeptic. Aslan also gives us poems by Ahmad Shamloo, Reza
Barahani, and some extraordinary verses by Forugh Farrokhzad, arguably the most
famous woman in the history of Persian literature. Farrokhzad, who died
tragically in the 1960s at the age of thirty-two, speaks of familiar subjects
with a startlingly personal and original voice:
I have sinned a rapturous sin
In a warm enflamed embrace,
Sinned in a pair of vindictive arms,
arms violent and ablaze.
--from "Sin"
In the last section of the
anthology Aslan opts for a porous, transnational format. "[J]ust as the
world is slowly becoming borderless, so too will this final section of our
collection remain without borders -- one writer passing the baton to the next,
free of all ethnic or nationalist divisions yet bound together by a shared
sense of historical consciousness." I have to admit that this seems a bit
fanciful to me; there are real differences in the historical consciousness of
Algeria and Yemen, for instance -- or, as recent news items have reminded us,
Saudi Arabia and Iran -- and while reading this section I found myself constantly
referring to the Author Biographies at the back of the book for dates,
nationalities, context.
But this is not a reference book, nor has Aslan tried to make it one. It is, rather, a sampler, something to whet the appetite and inspire the reader to dig more deeply into the national literatures on offer. And it is not only the authors who are a revelation but the translators as well, including Kieran, Sholeh Wolpé, Basharat Peer, Edouard Roditi, and Erdag Göknar. Great translators are almost as rare as great writers, and it is a joy to see so many of them represented in one volume.
The fifth title in this anthology series (following Literature from the "Axis of Evil") is a broad, century-spanning collection of poems, short stories, novel and memoir excerpts, and essays from ten countries and the state of Palestine. Of these, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan are the best represented, while Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine also receive significant coverage. Editor Aslan states that his goal was to provide "a different, more authentic perception of this rich and complex region," and in this he is largely successful. Authors range from names well known in the West (Kahlil Gibran, Naguib Mahfouz) to the overlooked and unknown (Ismat Chughtai, Ghassan Kanafani). The early sections of the book, as expected, feature only a handful of women writers, but the post-1980 section achieves a far better balance. VERDICT This is a necessary and well-curated collection, though perhaps a little heavy on poetry for some readers' tastes. Essential for all academic libraries—an entire literature course could easily be built around this one book—yet highly recommended for general readers as well.—Forest Turner, Suffolk Cty. House of Correction Lib., Boston