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© Hartwig Klappert
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Khaled Najar
Tunisia
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Khaled Najar was born in
Tunis in 1949. He is descended from a Bedouin family from the south of
the country. At the end of the 1960's he published his first poems and
began to work as a journalist. He has written for various Arabic
newspapers and magazines, including »Almostaqbal« and »Al Watan
Al-Arabi«, as well as »Alhayat«, and was a member of the editorial team
of »Akbar El Adab« in Cairo. In addition, he undertook journalistic
work for UNESCO in Paris.
Najar is a knowledgeable connoisseur of
Arab as well as of occidental culture and is recognised as the most
lyrical poet in the francophone literature of Tunisia. However, as yet,
he has only published one collection of poems, the »Poèmes pour un ange
perdu« (1990; t: Poems for a lost angel). While most definitely
anchored in the Arab tradition, the volume is influenced greatly by
French literature and presents concentrated, melodious pieces of work.
With their seminal utilisation of imagery from nature – sand, wind,
sun, water, night are all regularly used terms – they would, through
their lightness and harmonic alliance of opposites, call to mind
haikus, were it not for their dramatically inscribed feeling of
sacrifice and yearning. Najar's poems have been translated into
English, German, Spanish, Danish and Italian. He himself has emerged as
a productive translator and, amongst others, has translated poems by
Lorca, Valéry, Ungaretti, Saint John Perse, André Velter, Lorand
Gaspar, Michel Butor, Georges Schehadé and Etel Adnan into Arabic. Many
of his translations have been published as monographs.
In 1991
Najar founded the Tawbaad publishing house, which produces the
bilingual newspaper »Le Livre des questions« and, with the help of
renowned authors such as Adonis or Michel Butor, presents literary
texts and cultural debates in Arabic and French. Without fear of
polemic confrontation the publication presents Arab and European
perspectives alongside one another.
The author has undertaken
numerous trips throughout North America, Europe and the Orient, which
he has catalogued in reports such as »Les solitudes de Coghnawagha« (t:
Forms of loneliness in Coghnawagha), which deals with Native Americans.
He has also interviewed writers such as Alberto Moravia, Nagib Mahfouz
and Yannis Ritsos. Najar lives in Tunis.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Poèmes pour un ange perdu
Riyad el-Rayyes
London, 1990
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