See All Buying Options

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 2 images

Iraqi Poetry Today Paperback – May 1, 2002

by Saadi Simawe (Editor), Daniel Weissbort (Editor), Norma Rinsler (Editor)

1 customer review

See all formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Paperback, May 1, 2002

"Please retry"

—

$10.25

$0.04

Paperback
from $0.04 17 Used from $0.04 7 New from $10.25

For two decades, since the Iraq-Iran war in 1980, Iraq has been the focus of numerous political, economic, sociological, military, and geopolitical studies. However, very little has been published on the Iraqi literary tradition. Modern Iraq has produced a highly complex literature of survival in response to various realities of oppression and to challenges of modernism.

Translators include Naomi Shibab Nye, Ellen Dore Watson, Daniel Weissbort, and Ferial Ghazoul.

Dr. Saadi Simawe guest-edited the pioneering Palestine/Israel issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (No. 14), and three years ago guest-edited a special issue of Arab Studies Quarterly on modern Iraqi literature. He is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and American Studies, Grinnell University.

Iraqi Poetry Today

Available from these sellers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Simawe guest-edited the poineering Palestine/Israel issue of Modern Poetry in Translation (No. 14), and three years ago guest-edited a special issue of Arab Studies Quarterly on modern Iraqi literature (v. 19, Fall 1997). Dr. Simawe is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and American Studies, Grinnell University.

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Series: Modern Poetry in Translation (Book 19)
Paperback: 280 pages
Publisher: Modern Poetry in Translation (May 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 095338246X
ISBN-13: 978-0953382460
Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,748,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2519 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Anthologies

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		100%
4 star		0%
3 star		0%
2 star		0%
1 star		0%

See all verified purchase reviews

Share your thoughts with other customers

Write a customer review

Top Customer Reviews

A Vital Literary Contribution

By Fernando on August 25, 2003

This translation was not produced to serve as an intellectual distraction for academic elites, nor enchanted minds lounging in pricey cafes. Instead, it is a serious attempt to "save what remains of Iraqi humanity and culture in the face of dictatorship and war" (5). Indeed, under the current turmoil of post-war occupied Iraq, the publication of Simawe and Weissbort's translation is more urgent than ever.
The volume represents several major styles of Arab and Kurdish poetry, and subjects range from love, mourning, war, dictatorship, politics, exile, religion, to personal and artistic repression, as well as the oppressive regime that existed under Saddam Hussein. At the time of printing, all but five of the poets in the volume lived in Western exile. Included are biographies of the translators as well as the poets, a feature that often helps to inform the poems. What do readers find among these biographies, Islamic fundamentalists? Hardly. Instead, we have what might otherwise appear as a nexus of contrasts: doctoral students, journalists, educators, a youth counselor and author of children's book, editors, a former Iraqi Kurdistan Minister of Culture, a computer manufacturer, translators, graduates and students of American universities, poets who are also playwrights and essayists; and, in general, a large assembly of prolifically published writers whose world views span a wide breadth of politics and religion. Although broadly regional, the poems are far from being culturally naïve or parochial, and they continually evoke a mythically-imbued solicitude for not just traditional regions or settings such as the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but even the gods, kings, queens, literary dissidents, warriors, and cities of both ancient Iraq and the ancient Western world.Read more ›

Comment 14 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Report abuse

See all verified purchase reviews (newest first)

Write a customer review

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads