Poetry, Translations

Miracle Maker: The selected poems of Fadhil Al-Azzawi

"In the current disgrace, amid the din of corporate trolls contending with medieval ogres, of course, the good poet opts for the Fairy Tale. And, of course, the godly idealist chooses the empty dream and desert hells which only the godly know as Paradise. Fadhil Al-Azzawi has outsped his tormentors and turned their history, thanks be to God, upon its head. He is the Mandelstam of now, with Mayakovsky's panache thrown in for good measure. These poems profess a future without precedent."--Donald Revell "An astonishing collection by an Iraqi master poet who opens up all the despair and tenderness of our times. Let yourself be invaded and occupied by the words of Fadhil Al-Azzawi. They will resonate with you for many days and nights."--Ariel Dorfman

Song of the Dead Arab

Left to the wind that dwells in the fields,
time and time again, you built the gardens of Babel.
Time and time again, you lifted stones to raise towers,
time and time again, you crossed rivers
and built your temples to the wind
where priests recited their old incantations.
Time and time again, you crossed the Empty Quarter
and created a civilization with the tip of your proverbial spear,
O beautiful Arab.
But as you die now, starving, your lips parted,
I'll call you Homeland, if you wish
and my name will be Life.
You are dying on the sidewalk of a street wet with dew,
and I look into your eyes and fail to recognize you.

© BOA Editions, Ltd 2003

Available Editions
-----------------------------------------------------
ClothISBN: 1-929918-44-5
Price: $22.00
Publishing Date: 2003
Paperback ISBN: 1-929918-45-3
Price: $12.00
Publishing Date: 2003

FormatPaperback , Hardcover

Publication DateJanuary 1, 2003

ISBN1-929918-45-3

From $12.00

About the Author

Fadhil Al-Azzawi

Fadhil Al-Azzawi is one of the leading experimental writers in the Arab world. Born in 1940 in Kirkuk, Iraq, he has published seven volumes of poetry, six novels, three books of criticism and memoir, and several translations of German literary works. Al-Azzawi participated in Iraq's avant-garde Sixties Generation, and his early controversial work was critiqued and lauded with great enthusiasm. He edited a number of magazines in Iraq and abroad and founded Shi`r 69 (Poetry 69), which was banned after the fourth number. He spent three years in jail under the dictatorship of the Ba`th regime. In 1976, as the Baathist-controlled regime was tightening its grip on power, Al-Azzawi left Iraq to earn a doctorate in cultural journalism from Leipzig University. Titles available in English include Miracle Maker (BOA Editions 2003), poems translated by Khaled Mattawa, and three novels, The Last of the Angels (2007 and 2008), Cell Block Five (2008), and The Traveler and the Innkeeper (2011), all translated by William Maynard Hutchins. Al-Azzawi has worked as a freelance journalist and translator for Arab newspapers and cultural reviews, and is currently a full-time writer living in Berlin.

Khaled Mattawa

Khaled Mattawa was born in Benghazi, Libya, in 1964 and immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager. He earned an MA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University and his PhD from Duke University. He is the author of four books of poetry and Mahmoud Darwish: The Poet’s Art and His Nation. His vast collection of translations include Adonis: Selected Poems (Yale University, 2010), Invitation to a Secret Feast (Tupelo Press, 2008) by Joumana Haddad, A Red Cherry on a White Tile Floor (Copper Canyon Press, 2007) by Maram Al-Massri, and Miracle Maker: Selected Poems of Fadhil Al-Azzawi (BOA Editions, 2004), among others. Mattawa is the recipient of many notable awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. Currently, Mattawa teaches in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.