A Critic Who Worships Literature, and Defends His Faith Accordingly
By Nathaniel Rich, NYT,
Review of:
AMERICAN AUDACITY In Defense of Literary Daring By William Giraldi 462 pp. Liveright. $30.
If
literature, as William Giraldi writes in “American Audacity,” is “the
one religion worth having,” then Giraldi is our most tenacious
revivalist preacher, his sermons galvanized by a righteous exhortative
energy, a mastery of the sacred texts and — unique in contemporary
literary criticism — an enthusiasm for moralizing in defense of high
standards. “Do I really expect Americans to sit down with ‘Adam Bede’ or
‘Clarissa’ after all the professional and domestic hurly-burly of their
day?” he asks in an essay bemoaning “Fifty Shades of Grey.” “Pardon me,
but yes, I do.” The only insincerity there is the request for pardon:
Giraldi is defiantly, lavishly unforgiving.
Adonis - I Write In A Language That Exiles Me Read by Pierre Joris Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa'id) - I Write In A Language That Exiles Me - From the preface to his collection of poems The Pages Of Day And Night - Read by Pierre Joris I Write In A Language That Exiles Me From the preface to his collection of poems The Pages Of Day And Night by Adonis (Ali Ahmad Sa'id) (1930-) I write in a language that exiles me. The relationship of an Arab poet to his language is like that of a mother who gives away her son after the first stirrings in her body. If we accept the biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael, as repeated in the Quran, we realize that maternity, paternity and even language itself were all born in exile for the Arab poet. Exile is his mother-country, according to this story. For him it can be said: "In the beginning was the exile, not the word". In the struggle against the hell of daily life, the Arab poet's only shelter is the hell of exile. Being a poet means that I have already written but that I have actually written nothing. Poetry is an act without a beginning or an end. It is really a promise of a beginning, a perpetual beginning.njhmnj
Syrian Poet Adonis criticizes Arab Society Syrian Poet Adonis: We, in Arab Society, Do Not Understand the Meaning of Freedom" ANB TV (Lebanon) - 11/26/2006 - 00:04:40
Syrian Poet Adonis criticizes Arab Society (2006) In Arabic and French subtitles The poet Ali Ahmad Sa'id (b. 1930), known by his pseudonym "Adonis," a 2005 candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, left his native Syria for Lebanon in the 1950s following six months' imprisonment for political activity. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. from St. JosephUniversity in Beirut; in 1985, he settled in Paris, where he now works as a writer and literary critic. Among other occupations, he has edited the modernist magazine Mawaqif (Viewpoints), and translated some of the great French poets into Arabic
Syrian poet Adonis at the 92nd Street Y Long considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Syrian poet Adonis is "today's most daring and provocative Arab poet," wrote Edward Said. Now 80 and living in Paris, Adonis made his first appearance at 92Y Poetry Center on October 25, 2010, reading from his newly published Selected Poems. Khaled Mattawa, his translator, reads from an English translation.
Adonis - Rawafed Interview Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said) is interviewed by Ahmad Ali El Zein - Rawafed - Al-Arabiya - April 2011
Arabic Literature and Translating Culture, Pt 1 of 2 Alaa Al Aswany, auhor of Yacoubian Building and Chicago, Samia Mehrez, professor of Arabic literature at AUC and Mark Linz, director of the AUC Press speak on a panel on the culture of Arabic writing and translation. This panel is a part of the inauguration week of the New Cairo campus for the American University in Cairo.
Arabic Literature and Translating Culture, Pt 2 of 2
Arabic Literature in English by Marcia Qualey
The global significance of Arabic language and literature
The Arab spring and the individual: Literary aspects
