Let Me Tell You What I Saw by Adnan Al-Sayegh

Let Me Tell You What I Saw by Adnan Al-Sayegh

Uruk’s Anthem has been described as beautiful, powerful and courageous and at the same time apocalyptic and terrifying in its unwavering scrutiny of, and opposition to, oppression and dictatorship wherever it occurs in the world. Fusing ancient Arabic and Sumerian poetic traditions with many innovative and experimental features of both Arabic and Western literature, Uruk’s Anthem might best be described as a modernist dream poem that frequently strays into nightmare; yet it is also imbued with a unique blend of history, mythology, tenderness, lyricism, humour and surrealism. It took twelve years to write (1984-1996). During eight years of that time Adnan was forced to fight in the Iran-Iraq War. Many of his friends were killed and he spent eighteen months in an army detention centre, a disused stable and dynamite store, dangerously close to the border with Iran. A smaller selection of extracts from Uruk’s Anthem (translated by Jenny Lewis and Ruba Abughaida) was published in English for the first time in Singing for Inanna (Mulfran Press, 2014) a first step towards Let Me Tell You What I Saw. This important, more comprehensive translation includes notes to the text and an introduction by Jenny Lewis, and translation notes by Jenny and by Ruba Abughaida.

Adnan Al-Sayegh is an Iraqi poet-in-exile renowned for his epic, Uruk’s Anthem, inspired by myth and the troubled history of Iraq in his lifetime. It is a passionate denunciation of war and violence. Jenny Lewis is a poet, playwright, translator and songwriter who teaches poetry at Oxford University. Her father was born in Blaenclyddach and she comes from a long line of Welsh miners who worked at Trehafod colliery in the Rhondda. She has published four full collections of poetry and two chapbooks in English and Arabic with Adnan al-Sayegh (Mulfran Press, 2013/ 14) as part of the award-winning, Arts Council-funded ‘Writing Mesopotamia’ project which aims to build bridges and foster friendships between English and Arabic-speaking communities. Her re-imagining of the Gilgamesh epic, Gilgamesh Retold, published by Carcanet in October 2018, was a New Statesman Book of the Year, a Carcanet Book of the Year and a London Review of Books ‘Book of the Week’ on publication. She is currently completing a PhD on Gilgamesh at Goldsmiths, London University. Ruba Abughaida is a writer of fiction and poetry. She has recently completed an MSt. in creative writing at Cambridge University. She is working on her first historical fiction novel and has published short stories, poetry, literary reviews and essays as well as travel writing. She won first prize for an extract from her story 'The Sirocco Winds' in the Writers and Artist’s Yearbook Historical Fiction Competition 2014 and worked with Jenny Lewis and Adnan al-Sayegh in translating poetry from English to Arabic and Arabic to English.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781781726020
ISBN 10	1781726027
Title	Let Me Tell You What I Saw
Author	Adnan Al-Sayegh
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Poetry Wales Press
Year published	2020-10-26
Number of pages	206
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.