Lebanon: Poems of Love and War, Bilingual Edition

by Nadia Tuéni, Christophe Ippolito (Editor), Samuel Hazo (Translator)

This bilingual anthology, edited by Christophe Ippolito, contains Samuel Hazo's complete translation of Twenty Poems for One Love and Paul B. Kelley's selections from the never-before-translated Sentimental Archives of a War in Lebanon. The Francophone poet Nadia Tueni has devoted readers in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East and has quickly achieved poetic distinction in France. The fluency of her poetic language and motifs—reflecting Tueni's love of her people and country—is illuminated in Ippolito's "She chose to create a new poetic language that captured the fragile essence of her troubled country and exposed the many crises of identities present in the war. By identifying with her country, she placed herself beyond all parties and created a sacred river that irrigates her poems." Drawn from two collections that were published during the civil war in Lebanon in 1979 and 1982, these poems are haunted by the Lebanese some transcend famous Lebanese locales as the symbolic incarnations of the land's eternal essence; others, illuminated at first by nostalgic memories, take on a prophetic tone. Tueni's work merges the poetic with the political landscape of her country. She " I belong to a country that commits suicide every day, while it is being assassinated." The languages of Rimbaud, Lautreamont, and surrealist poetry have had a decisive influence on Tueni's poetry. But she also owes a great debt on the Arabic side to the avant-garde poets, for example, the celebrated Adonis. Like many Lebanese writers, Tueni was active in political circles, particularly after the war in 1967. Her poems tell of suffering—"memories of an abandoned garden slip away"—of her own life slipping away, and in the end, the reader is invited to reflect on the mimesis of identity of a country, identity of a woman, each echoing the other.

Genres: Poetry, Lebanon

122 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Nadia Tuéni (born Hamadeh) was a Lebanese Francophone poet, who authored numerous volumes of poetry.

She was born in Beirut in 1935, to a Lebanese Druze father, Mohammed Ali Hamadeh, who was a diplomat and writer, and a French mother. She grew up as bilingual in the presence of two cultures. Her brother, Marwan Hamadeh, is a politician, and another brother, Ali Hamadeh, is a journalist at An Nahar and Future TV.

Tuéni published her first book of poems, Les Textes Blonds, in 1963. She worked as the literary editor of the Lebanese French-language newspaper, Le Jour, in 1967 and contributed to various Arabic and French publications.

She married Ghassan Tuéni, the publisher of An Nahar and doyen of the Lebanese press, in 1953 in a civil marriage ceremony. They had three children, all of whom would predecease their father, who long outlived her. Her son, Gebran Tuéni, a journalist and politician, was assassinated in 2005. Another son, Makram, was 21 when he died in a car accident in Paris in 1987. A daughter, Nayla, who was born in 1955 died of cancer at age 7. Her death deeply affected Nadia and led her to compose her first collection: Les Textes Blonds, which was published in 1963. In 1967, she became a literary editor at Le Jour, where she contributed to various Arabic and French publications. She also has a brother, the minister and deputy Marwan Hamade and a step brother, a journalist in An Nahar daily newspaper, Ali Hamade. She describes her country, Lebanon, in Poems of Love and War (2006:xxxv) as follows: "I belong to a country that commits suicide every day while it is being assassinated. As a matter of fact, I belong to a country that died several times. Why should I not die too of the gnawing, ugly, slow, and vicious death, of this Lebanese death?"

Tuéni received several awards during her lifetime, including the Prix de l'Académie Française, the Order of La Pléiade, and the Prix Said Akl.

Reviews

[Sandro]

I shall weave light in these mountains, and name it liberty-
a name shared by too many faces I will hear your doubts galloping, flank pressed against minaret flank, against church bowels;
and will know that henceforth never again will TRuE be JUsT; and I will laugh to see grow the violent grass of war.
Oh this hate,
oh this hate that fecundates the earth, like a woman's warm blood.
Oh this love,
oh this love under my canines, like a round grain of cardamom.
Oh tenderness-fog,
hanging upon Lebanon like a funeral cortège.
Ancient land,
vital memory of these mutilated bodies that legitimize you.
History stands erect upon your shores, while my mountain's pulse beats.




Je tisserai lumière dans ces montagnes; et la nommerai liberté nom commun à trop de visages-Sentendrai galoper vos doutes, flanc contre flanc de minaret, contre entrailles d'église; et je saurai que désormais jamais plus, VRAI, ne sera, JUSTE;
et je rirai de voir pousser l'herbe violente de la guerre.
O cette haine,
ô cette haine qui féconde la terre, comme sang chaud de femme.
O cet amour,
ô cet amour sous mes canines, comme grain rond de cardamone.
O tendresse-brouillard, sur le Liban comme cortège.
Pays vieux,
souvenir nécessaire de ces corps mutilés qui te font légitime.
L'histoire est debout sur ta plage, quand bat le pouls de ma montagne.



—

In the heat of the sun, with the wind round my neck and rain whipping at my mouth, in the heat of the sun,
I watch the walls of my memory sweat.
It was you who, just a step away,
held out your hair so that I might cling to it.
Discard, then, all these bullets
that kill or do not kill according to the rules of tenderness.
Now, let go of me,
for I am sent reeling, my womb red with the blood of us all.
And I laugh in the heat of the sun, because madness garners the landscape, studiously.
Even you just a step away wear winter upon your face so as to wrest from me my life's breath and hang it over the border.
So in the heat of the sun I die of incoherence in bursts.



En plein soleil, avec le vent autour du cou et fouets de pluie dans la bouche, en plein soleil,
je regarde suinter les murs de ma mémoire.
Tu es celui qui, à trois pas,
m'as tendu ses cheveux pour que je m'y accroche.
Fais-donc voler toutes ces balles qui tuent ou ne tuent pas selon des règles de tendresse.
Lache-moi à présent,
car je chavire de l'autre côté de mon ventre rouge du sang de tous.
Et je ris en plein soleil, parce que la folie moissonne le paysage, studieusement.
Même toi à trois pas mets un hiver sur ton visage pour m'arracher mon souffle et l'accrocher à la frontière d'à côté.
Alors en plein soleil je meurs d'incohérence en eclats.



—

Was I born of a lie. in a country that did not exist?
Am I one tribe at the confluence of two opposing bloods?
But perhaps 1 am not.
But of course 1 am not, your equations prove it, even while lowering my voice I do not hear the sea, nor do I hear the light.
Who will make me real?
Threatened, therefore living, Wounded, therefore being, Fearful, therefore frightening, Erect, therefore a flame tree.
Who will make me real?



Suis-je né d'un mensonge dans un pays qui n'existait pas?
Suis-je tribu au confluent de sangs contraires?
Mais peut-être ne suis-je pas.
Certes je ne suis pas, vos équations le disent, même en baissant la voix je n'entends pas la mer, ni n'entends la lumiere.
Qui me rendra présent?
Menace, donc vivant, blessé, donc étant peureux, donc effrayant, debout, donc flamboyant.
Qui me rendra présent?


—

I am perhaps but a shrill passer-by, seeking roots by the name of Earth, stroller of the void, explorer of regrets, but,
I lower my voice to hear more clearly the Country-howl, to hear the dogs of death drunk from the initial wound,
that, because it was free, was alone pure.
O sound of delirium that takes the shape of the sea, thoughts hemming the riot of the hours.
We are born threatened with life,
and remain so, until from us jointly,
threat and life depart.



Je ne suis peut-être que passant strident, cherchant racine du nom de Terre, promeneur du vide, explorateur de regrets, mais,
je baisse la voix pour mieux entendre hurler-Pays,
entendre les chiens de la mort ivres de la première blessure, qui seule fut pure, car libre.
O bruit du délire qui prend forme de mer, pensées ourlant l'émeute des heures.
Nous naissons menacés de vie, et le demeurons, jusqu'à ce que conjointement, menace et vie nous quittent.


—


for git.
At that time
Nothing was sparing:
Neither Death, nor Life.
The spoken word put in our veins, the carillon of madness.
Thick sky of Orient,
extinguish your lamp and this star, to give the darkness of night to murder.
And if I cannot, may the morning absolve these murderers with children's names.
At that time nothing was sparing.
A few feet from the prisoner a sob keeps vigil.
Have we in our asphalt hearts lived through the fire and its orgy?
Have we posted sentinels at the peristyle of our dreams and hanged our birds from every meridian?
Have we enslaved the wind?
At the time when nothing was sparing we scuttled the Earth.
17 February 1982



Je ne suis peut-être que passant strident, cherchant racine du nom de Terre, promeneur du vide, explorateur de regrets, mais,
je baisse la voix pour mieux entendre hurler-Pays,
entendre les chiens de la mort ivres de la première blessure, qui seule fut pure, car libre.
O bruit du délire qui prend forme de mer, pensées ourlant l'émeute des heures.
Nous naissons menacés de vie, et le demeurons, jusqu'à ce que conjointement, menace et vie nous quittent.

[Romy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poems that show the duality of Lebanon. I'm really looking forward to performing these poems