Poet
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Abbas Beydoun 1945-... country: Lebanon language: Arabic |
was jailed for political reasons and unable to write for seven years. After his release he worked as a cultural journalist in Lebanon, Cyprus and the Gulf. In his poetry self-criticism and political commitment go hand in hand. Apart from poetry he writes literary and drama criticism. Abbas Beydoun was born in 1945 in Sûr, a village near Tyre in the predominantly Shiite part of Lebanon, where he spent his early years. He inherited his love for classical Arabic language and literature from his father, who taught the village school. After secondary school he studied Arabic literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut and at the Paris Sorbonne. His early poems already bespeak a commitment to politics, reflecting his involvement in the Lebanese Communist movement. In 1974 that involvement caused him to be sent to jail. In 1982 he was imprisoned by the Israelis. After his release he wrote his poem ‘Tyre’, which marked a new phase in his poetic development. The poem is in three parts, the first and last of which are printed as continuous prose, whereas the middle part is free verse. The prose poem became his speciality. His control of this difficult genre is quite unmatched, and his flowing, dreamy, yet ever surprising style has found many admirers. Beydoun’s oeuvre comprises at least nine volumes of poetry and many articles and essays. Two selections from his poems and articles have appeared in German translation and the magazine Banipal published English translations of his poems in its issues of October 1998 and Summer 2000. In October 2002, Abbas Beydoun and the German writer Michael Kleeberg performed the opening of the important German cultural exchange project ‘West-östlicher Diwan’. Author: Kees Nijland Translated by Ko Kooman Time in Big Mouthfuls (1982); Tyre (1985); Images (1985); Critique of Pain (1987); Rooms (1992); Full Brothers of Our Regret (1993); Sick Hope (1997). Poets: |
