Poetry
لن
Not translated into English
Ounsi el-Hajj · 1960
Synopsis
The author's first collection, and the first book of prose poems in the Arabic language. These free texts, surrealist in inspiration, break with ancient traditions to give pride of place to individual experience, and a preface introduces the reader to this new genre in Arabic literature. The title translates as "no" or "never".
Context
The collection appeared in 1960, three years after the founding of Shiʿr, a review without which, the author said, he would never have become a poet. It opens a body of work of six collections, from The Severed Head in 1963 to The Banquet in 1994. The anthology Éternité volante, published by Sindbad in 1997, gathers in French poems from six collections written between 1960 and 1994; the collection has not been translated on its own into French or English.
Who it is for
To read the birth certificate of the Arabic prose poem, in a language freed from the old forms.
Prizes and reception
The book caused a sensation on publication; on the poet's death, the critic Akl al-Awit called his death a great loss for Arabic poetry.