Book of Month: June 2001

On Entering the Sea: The Erotic and Other Poetry of Nizar Qabbani

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Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Interlink Books
Year: 1998

Translated from Arabic by Lena Jayyusi

Editorial Review from Booklist

Qabbani, reputed to be the most popular poet in the Arab world, is certainly one of the greatest love poets of all time, as he follows the noble path of Kahlil Gibran. Although wonderfully prolific and internationally renowned, Damascus-born Qabbani has been all but unavailable in English translations in the U.S. This beautiful collection rectifies that situation. The volume's introduction asserts that Qabbani is a heroic champion of women's rights who, by equating beauty and eroticism with liberty and justice, and celebrating women in all their strength and glory, challenges in his poetry his culture's cruel repression of women. In his classically passionate poems, poems as bright as flowers and as caressing as a pool of water, Qabbani declares that to be female is to be holy. This is a sweet message for any woman, but especially for Arabian women, who are viewed as the property of their male relatives. Whether he's writing of love or war, Qabbani achieves a mythic dimension. Donna Seaman

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