Miracle Maker: The Selected Poems of Fadhil Al-Azzawi

by Fadhil al-Azzawi, Khaled Mattawa (Translation)

This collection features poems from Al-Azzawi’s six previous Arabic poetry collections and many new poems. Springing from classical Arabic poetry, his poems speak to political exile, -cultural marginalization, and Middle Eastern and Western histories and mythologies. Al-Azzawi employs -humor, melancholy and tenderness to celebrate new worlds of possibility. Fadhil Al-Azzawi was born in 1940 in Kirkuk, Iraq. By the time he was -fifteen, he was publishing poems in the leading Arab literary magazines in Beirut and Baghdad. Al-Azzawi -currently lives in London. Khaled Mattawa (Translator) is the author of a -collection of poetry, Ismailia Eclipse, and the translator of two books of contemporary Arabic poetry, Hatif Janabi’s Questions and Their Retinue and Saddi Youssef’s Without an Alphabet, Without a Face .

Genres: Poetry

130 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2003

About the author

Fadhil Al Azzawi (Arabic: فاضل العزاوي ; born 1940 in Kirkuk, Iraq) is an Iraqi writer highly respected in the Arab world, as he has published seven volumes of poetry, six novels, three books of criticism and memoir, and several translations of German literary works. He participated in Iraq's avant-garde Sixties Generation, and his early controversial work was lauded with great enthusiasm.

He holds a BA in English Literature from Baghdad University, however Fadhil soon left Iraq in 1976, as the Baathist-controlled regime was becoming increasingly powerful. He later earned a doctorate in communications studies from Leipzig University. He has worked as a freelance journalist and translator for Arab newspapers and cultural reviews. He also founded the poetry magazine Shi’r 69.

He currently resides in Berlin, where he works as a full-time writer.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Edita]

Our exile is distant and deep as a river.
But we will never drown,
believing that everything will in the end turn out well,
and the rose itself will be the spring in its entirety
united with fire.

[Kathy Piselli]

All hail the translators of poetry! They are true miracle makers. This is an excellent collection of poems by Azzawi, who grew up hearing Iraqi Turkmen in his northern home city spontaneously composing poetry as they stumbled home drunk. I loved the Abdallah series with evocative titles like "In the village of children" and "A donkey at the mill" and its memorable last lines "and learn to see in the eyes of children / the man you seek" and "The donkey mumbled from a distance, / 'Thank you, Abdullah.'" If the reader is complacent, they'll be jarred, and if they are upset, they'll be soothed. But every American should at least read "Elegy for the living (Iraq: January 17, 1991)" (and if you don't know what happened on January 17, 1991, find out): "You bombs named after the mistresses of soldiers from a dilapidated continent, explode over Al-Rashid Street. Wipe out our memories, rip over Al-Zahawi Cafe, over Hassan Ajami's coffee shop, over the Brazilian Cafe, over Cafe Samar, and disintegrate on Abu Nuwas Beach where the fish of the Tigris have fled never to return." A snapshot of the Baghdad that was. The collection ends with the emptiness of Feast in candlelight, published in 2002. Boa did a wonderful service publishing this collection, even including an image of one in the author's hand. It could only have been improved by being bilingual throughout. From The Opening: "And if my poems are poured on the sand, / it is because I dream the forgotten will read them / and that love will be my guide to the heart of man."