Publisher's Synopsis
Poetry. Middle Eastern Studies. Translated by Stephen Watts and Golan Haji. In Golan Haji's poems and prose-poems, fable and myth are incised into history and contemporanaeity, al-Ma'arri's verses are re-inscribed upon the Odyssey, made to reflect on the ongoing tragedy of the Kurdish people, and of each individual exile. A young Syrian poet now living in France, Haji, polyglot and humanist, is a luminous arrival for world poetry. Is there a word for 'saudade' in Arabic? His poems, in Stephen Watts' fine-honed translations, are imbued with it.--Marilyn Hacker
