Describing the Past
Ghassan Zaqtan author Samuel Wilder translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Seagull Books London Ltd
Published:19th Jul '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
When he was seven years old, Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan moved with his family to a Karameh refugee camp east of the River Jordan. That camp - a centre of Palestinian resistance following the Six-Day War and the site of major devastation when Israel razed the camp following the Battle of Karameh in 1968 - is the setting for Zaqtan's first prose work to appear in English, Describing the Past.
This novella is a coming-of-age story, a tale of youth set amid the death and chaos of war and violence. It is an elegy for the loss of a childhood friend, and for childhood itself, brought back to life here as if dreams and memories have merged into a new state of being, an altered consciousness and way of being in and remembering the world.
'To call the novella haunting would be insufficient. The prose has a rare, fugitive quality: a narration that seems to envy the air, envy the breath of the other, and which knows in contrast its own confinement. . .] This novella should be commended both for its role in the translation of Zaqtan's oeuvre into English and as the first title in a new series for Arabic literature at Seagull Books, edited by the scholar and translator Hosam Aboul-Ela. In Wilder's English, Zaqtan's images are vital and distinctively restless; the prose has a bold simplicity that never settles into familiarity.' -Full Stop
'A taut, perfect object, beautifully crafted (and translated by Wilder). Little is clear and there are few answers, but the ultimate impression is one of controlled gorgeousness. . . Seeing Zaqtan's novella emerging from this vibrant publishing house, and in such distinctive and elegant form, is an optimistic act of decolonisation from a book trade centered on the UK and US. If Seagull's vigorous list of Arab authors is indicative, there should be plenty more to come.'
-Electronic Intifada
'While history serves as a backdrop to this dream narrative, Describing the Past is primarily "the story of a childhood whose domain is between the living and the dead, a coming of age story that ends as soon as it begins in desire'. Samuel Wilder, winner of Lucius Lyon Prize for poetry translation and a doctoral candidate in Arabic studies at Cambridge University, has captured the lyricism in Zaqtan's writing with finesse.'
-Arab Weekly
ISBN: 9780857423498
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
80 pages