Guest of the ilb 2007
Abdel Moneim Ramadan was born
in Cairo in 1951. He belongs to a generation of writers influenced by
Surrealism that struggled against the prevailing, consensual tendency
that dominated Arabic literature. Following the publication of his
first poems in newspapers in 1972, the poetry collection »Al-Hulm Zil
Al-Waqt, Al-Hulm Zil Al-Makan« (1981; t: Dream is the shadow of sleep,
dream is the shadow of space) came out in the underground magazine
»Aswat« (Voices). Since then Ramadan has published four controversial
volumes of poetry: »Qabl Al-Ma', Qabl Al-Hafah« (1994; t: At the
water’s edge), »Limaza Ayuha Al-Madi Tanam fi Hadiqati« (1995; t: Why
does the past lie in my garden?), »Ba'idan 'an Al-Ka'inat« (2000; t:
Away from beings) and »Ghariyb 'Ala Al-'Aa'ila« (2000; t: Foreigners in
the family).
The poems fuse oppositions
without unifying them. In particular corporality and religion but also
reason and intuition, the self and other, the past and present, high
and low culture are presented through a variety of interconnections in
monologue-like free verse. The poem »Invocation«, for example, is a
contemporary rendering of the bond between the sacred and the profane
in the »Song of Solomon«.
Ramadan uses both classical
Arabic and Egyptian vernacular in his writing. He dispossesses the poem
of its ideological formulae through the use of montage-like
juxtapositions of images, evocations, repetitions and echoes of
classical works of literature, religious texts and folktales. In an
interview with »al-Ahrdm hebdo« he states: »The poet, I believe, does
not see more clearly than others. He is not born with the right to
speak on behalf of them, about their past and their future. The only
knowledge that he poet has is the knowledge of his body. That is the
only property which no one can share with him. The only possible way of
communicating with others is to convey that which is entirely separate
from them, that is, one's own body. To speak on behalf of ›the people‹,
of the passions or joys of a nation, is no longer the poet’s duty. The
poet is an individual and not a group, and his text is to divide its
readers, not to gather them together.«
Ramadan's work was included in
the 2003 anthology »Méditerranée ombrageuse voyage« (t: Mediterranean,
the timid voyage). In 2005 an Egyptian publishing house that reacted to
state censorship by publishing e-books on the Internet announced that
Ramadan had given permission to have his poems online as digital
publications. The author lives in his native city, Cairo.
© international literature festival berlin
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