Unbuttoning the Violin by Abed Ismael

Unbuttoning the Violin by Abed Ismael

Unbuttoning the Violin is produced by Banipal Books for the Banipal Live tour of the UK, 14-20 August 2006, which is a partnership of Banipal Magazine with the British Council and The Reading Agency, and generously supported by Arts Council England. Please visit this link for further details of the tour: http://www.banipal.co.uk/tour/ Four authors from the heart of the Arab world, and pre-eminent in their generation, tour the UK in August 2006 – poets Joumana Haddad from Lebanon and Abed Ismael from Syria, with fiction writers Mansoura Ez-Eldin from Egypt and Ala Hlehel from Palestine. This elegant paperback volume of selected works celebrates the tour with Banipal Live 2006, which includes a pioneering project with selected libraries along the tour route. Skilful and ingenious translators are indispensable to the task of bringing the writers' original words into the orbit and the soul of the reader in another language. This volume is fortunate in having the support of experienced translators from Arabic, Issa J. Boullata, Paul Starkey and Anthony Calderbank, and from French, the award-winning American poet and translator Marilyn Hacker, and the new-comer Nada Elzeer. All four authors differ in their approach to writing, all are active in their local literary scenes as both creative writers and as cultural journalists. Joumana Haddad's poetry takes the reader on excursions into history, into the life of women, is at times metaphorical, at other times a puzzle for the reader to unravel, while that of Abed Ismael is existential, questioning, sometimes with sadness, sometimes in mocking or heroic mood, and includes an unusual tour of Damascus in "Mirrors of Damascus". Mansoura Ez-Eldin's short stories are tantalising for their dark unexpected sides. Having heard from her grandmother's knee countless enchanting country tales of ghosts, fairies, goblins and djinn, she has no hesitation in shifting time and place, writing as a man, waking up in a dream, or just letting the reader draw his/her own conclusions. Ala Hlehel, a prize-winning author and a playwright, has a rare talent and follows in the footsteps of other powerful and individual Palestinian fiction writers such as Ghassan Kanafani and Emile Habiby in the way he takes an ordinary situation and lays bare its varying layers of pain, futility, absurdity, pomposity and injustice. Here are four authors not to miss.

Born in 1970 in Beirut, Joumana Haddad is an award-winning poet, literary translator, magazine publisher and journalist. Joumana is the cultural editor for the an-Nahar newspaper. In 2008 she launched the Arab world's first erotic cultural magazine, Jasad (Body), which made headlines around the world, leading the Sunday Telegraph to dub her 'The Carrie Bradshaw of Beirut'. She was chosen as one of the best Arab authors under 39 in 2009 (Beirut39), and acts as the administrator of the International Prize of Arabic Fiction (the 'Arab Booker'). Joumana was the recipient of the Blue Metropolis (Montreal) Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize in 2010.
She lives in Lebanon with her two sons.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780954966621
ISBN 10	0954966627
Title	Unbuttoning the Violin
Author	Abed Ismael
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Banipal Books
Year published	2006-01-01
Number of pages	122
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.