Category: the literary

on the country of the blind in full detail & downloadability

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The Country of the Blind and Other Stories Installation shots CAMP with GM-A Folkestone Triennial [ongoing]

CAMPuter.org now has a good page on the film here with cat. text, shot-lists, stills, credits… There’s also a link here to pad.ma where the film is archived…

But I strongly recommend heading down to Folkestone, not only to see the film in situ where it’s installed beautifully and offers optimised-viewing, but also to see all the other art on show throughout a fascinating town. The harbour tastes irresistible and in the pubs on the water  front a version of the film is always looping…

Folkestone Triennial’s page is here and they have weekend tours conducted by some high calibre guides not least this weekend with Achim Borchardt Hume here. It takes 53 minutes to get there…

Thanks everyone for the positive feedback.

on cy and elias, death and a new novel

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Suma Cy Twombly 1982

Cy Twombly was on my mind only last week as I worked on a short review of Elias Khoury’s new novel, As Though She Were Sleeping [MacLehose Press]. Khoury’s writing is highly distinctive and there are good literary cultural reasons for that, reasons I sketched in an interview based piece in 2005 for The Independent. Reasons I can’t keep on repeating, so I was trying to think of another way to describe his scratchy seeming but endlessly recircling, reconfiguring, rhythms of ideas, lines and words and a particular image of Twombly’s would not leave my mind. Continue reading “on cy and elias, death and a new novel” →

on the living of patrick leigh fermor

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Patrick Leigh Fermor – still from BBC film 2008

Ninety six is a good age to have lived. Both my grandmothers lived into their mid-90s, one of them to 96, a pivotal experience in my own life. Why am I telling you this?! Well PLF is such a vivid presence to me, principally from his writing and words and their conjuring of his feet and ‘heart’, that the news of his death is sad and yet the confirmation that he lived until today makes me happy. Continue reading “on the living of patrick leigh fermor” →

on the politics of the dead child -occupation vs humanity

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independentLondon

What is a Palestinian State Worth? By Sari Nusseibeh

Reviewed by Guy Mannes-Abbott

Friday, 22 April 2011

Writing about William Wordsworth, Jacques Ranciere celebrated a consideration for “all that is too small” in his poetry about the post-revolutionary landscape of France. The theorist also articulated a post-millennial consensus; lauding the poet for taking care of “the dead child that every politics abandons”. Such a child is the moral focus of Sari Nusseibeh’s new book, but with unintended results. Continue reading “on the politics of the dead child -occupation vs humanity” →

on celebration, james salter and stockholm

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The Paris Review have been celebrating James Salter lately, with prizes, an interview, mention of his forthcoming novel, manuscripts and republishing his first ever contribution; Sundays [1966] [comically, they have ascribed it to Giles Foden on their site!], which became part of A Sport and a Pastime. I’ve got a copy of that PR edition from 1966 with Sundays in it I’m happy to note! Here is a link to their site with its serial blog on JS.

Here follows a short excerpt on Light Years from my essay ‘On Meeting James Salter’ -which can stand as my own little celebration. Continue reading “on celebration, james salter and stockholm” →

in ramallah, running – a little bit

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In Ramallah, Running by Guy Mannes-Abbott [2011]

I can’t resist posting this image from one of the distributor’s sites for Translated By, there’s a page of other images/details here.

This is a tiny excerpt of the excerpt obviously. As a whole, my short running texts within Ramallah itself alternate with longer walking essays at/in/beyond the limits all around, which multiply and abstract in ways peculiar to this unique Occupation. Hence my attempt to reconjure the actual place, and actual people in their place. The whole text begins as it appears to do here, though this excerpt of 1500 words is made up only of running texts.

The actual book –In Ramallah, Running- is coming together in all its ambitious complexity!  Continue reading “in ramallah, running – a little bit” →

on the biting wisdom of poets [two], mahmoud darwish

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Mahmoud Darwish Absent Presence Hesperus CoverMine is a very short review in today’s Independent [in which you can also read Robert Fisk direct from al Tahrir Square, Cairo!] but then it’s a very short book and I couldn’t pretend that length diminished this version (in Mohammed Shaheen’s translation) of Darwish’s Absent Presence!

I’ve quoted Mahmoud Darwish’s own use of the word “baffling”, below. What is truly baffling is that in English there are almost as many translators as editions of his books. A lesser voice would have been neutered by this, but Darwish is a national writer on a par with any nation and simply deserves better.

 

Screenshot 2018-03-12 10.30.56

Absent Presence,

By Mahmoud Darwish

Lessons in life from the great divide

Reviewed by Guy Mannes-Abbott

Monday, 31 January 2011

Mahmoud Darwish was a giant of world literature.

This elegant edition of the last completed work before the Palestinian poet’s death in 2008 makes clear why. Absent Presence is a huge little book which defies conventional categorisation. It offers costly wisdoms Continue reading “on the biting wisdom of poets [two], mahmoud darwish” →

on the biting wisdom of poets [one], mourid barghouti

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What is happening, hopefully, in Egypt is truly momentous and it has been a long time coming, as MB says below; “When it happens, it will not have happened suddenly.” He is referring to a wider phenomenon across the Arab world, which is, I think, really the end [the real ending] of the post-Imperial age, the beginning of the beginning [the real beginning] of a new Arab autonomy and matching political culture. That is the prize. If Egypt completes its transformation, then it will be inevitable though not immediate and not in a single step. As such, it’s something that I’m only observing with respect and pleasure from just one ex-colonial capital!

A brief introductory quote from Tamim Barghouti’s related piece;

“Tunisia sent out the message that client regimes fall – that if we can drive the empires out, we will surely be able to drive out their vassals Continue reading “on the biting wisdom of poets [one], mourid barghouti” →