Tablet & Pen

In 1982 I had the privilege of taking a university class called ‘Modern Middle Eastern Literature in Translation’, taught by a team of five literature scholars. Our main text was New Writing from the Middle East [Edited with an introduction and commentary by Leo Hamalian and John D. Yohannan. New York: F. Ungar, 1978)], a collection which, until the appearance of the volume under review, was the only anthology of Middle Eastern writing featuring more than one literary tradition.

The breakdown of Tablet & Pen is as follows (with the number of selections indicated in brackets):

Part One: 1910–1950

I. The Language of Invention: The Renaissance of Arabic Literature, 1910–1920 (5)

II. My Country: The Nationalism of Turkish Literature, 1920–1930 (3)

III. Once Upon a Time: Politics and Piety in Persian Literature, 1930–1940 (4)

IV. Rise Up! Pakistan and the Independence of Urdu Literature, 1940–1950 (5)

Part Two: 1950–1980

V. I am Arab: Arabic Literature at Midcentury (9) (I should note, in the spirit of full disclosure, that passages from my translation of a poem by the Syro-Lebanese poet Adonis are included)

VI. Strangers in a Strange Land: Turkish Literature after Atatürk (6)

VII. Those Days: Persian Literature Between Two Revolutions (9)

VIII. Between the Dusk and Dawn of History: Urdu Literature after Partition (6)

Part Three: 1980–2010

IX. Ask Me About the Future: The Globalization of Middle Eastern Literature, 1980–2010 (22)