Nazik al-Mala'ika's Revolt Against the Sun

with Emily Drumsta

hosted by Sam Dolbee

| Nazik al-Mala'ika (1923-2007) is one of the foremost figures in twentieth-century Arabic poetry. Born in Baghdad, she wrote about varied topics, ranging from the 1947 cholera epidemic in Egypt to the rise of communism in Iraq to a nighttime train ride. She pioneered what became known as "free verse," a form at once innovative but also based upon older metrical structures. Emily Drumsta has recently translated a collection of al-Mala'ika's poetry into English under the title of Revolt against the Sun, with Saqi Books. In this episode, we discuss how al-Mala'ika's Arab nationalist politics informed her metrical innovation, and how she played with gendered expectations in her poetry. We also talk about some of the challenges of preserving rhythm and sound in translation. 

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Nazik al-Mala'ika (1923-2007) is one of the foremost figures in twentieth-century Arabic poetry. Born in Baghdad, she wrote about varied topics, ranging from the 1947 cholera epidemic in Egypt to the rise of communism in Iraq to a nighttime train ride. She pioneered what became known as "free verse," a form at once innovative but also based upon older metrical structures. Emily Drumsta has recently translated a collection of al-Mala'ika's poetry into English under the title of Revolt against the Sun, with Saqi Books. In this episode, we discuss how al-Mala'ika's Arab nationalist politics informed her metrical innovation, and how she played with gendered expectations in her poetry. We also talk about some of the challenges of preserving rhythm and sound in translation. 

Contributor Bios

Emily Drumsta Emily Drumsta is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, specializing in modern Arabic and Francophone literatures. Her current book project, Ways of Seeking, explores the history of detection and investigation in twentieth-century Arabic fiction. Her translation, Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Mala'ikah (Saqi Books in 2020), was the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation prize in 2018. She is a co-founder of Tahrir Documents, an online archive of newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, and other ephemera collected in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the 2011 uprisings in Egypt.

Sam Dolbee is a lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University. His research is on the environmental history of the late Ottoman Empire told through the frame of locusts in the Jazira region.

Further Listening

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	Ahmed Ragab	385 10/13/18	Imagining Iraq
	Didem Havlioğlu	357 4/12/18	Love Poems of an Ottoman Woman: Mihrî Hatun
	Suja Sawafta	414 6/14/19	The Environmental Politics of Abdul Rahman Munif
	Nevila Pahumi	490 1/21/21	Paraskevi Kyrias, Albania, and the US at the Paris Peace Conference

Credits

Episode No. 493
Release Date: 8 February 2021
Recording Location: Providence, RI and Somerville, MA
Audio editing by Sam Dolbee and Chris Gratien
Music: Blue Dot Sessions, "Um Pepino"; Chad Crouch, "Pacing"; Zé Trigueiros, "Big Road of Burravoe"

Bibliography and images courtesy of Emily Drumsta

Images

Gathering for Shi'r magazine's Thursday reading series in Beirut, January 1960. Front row (left to right): Shawqi Abi Shaqra, Muhammad al-Maghut, Yusuf al-Khal, Fuad Rifqa, Adunis, Fadwa Tuqan, Lur Ghurayyib. Back row (left to right): Jurj Sayda, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Badwi al-Jabal, Salma al-Khadra al-Jayyusi.

Photo from the same gathering (left to right): Khalida Said, Nazik al-Mala'ika, Fadwa Tuqan, Salma al-Khadra al-Jayyusi.

Select Bibliography

Altoma, Salih J. “Nazik al-Mala’ika’s Poetry and its Critical Reception in the West.” Translated by Saadi Simawe. Arab Studies Quarterly 19, volume 4 (1997): 7-20.

Boullata, Kamal, editor. Women of the Fertile Crescent: an Anthology of Modern Poetry. Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1978.

Creswell, Robyn. “Nazik al-Mala’ika and the Poetics of Pan-Arabism.” Critical Inquiry 46 (2019): 71-96.

Creswell, Robyn. City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.

Handal, Nathalie, editor. The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology. Northampton: Interlink Books, 2000.

Jabrā, Jabrā Ibrāhīm. “al-Shiʿr al-Ḥurr wa-l-Naqd al-Jāhil.” Adab 2, no. 1 (1963): 74-78. [Reprinted as: “al-Shiʿr al-Ḥurr wa-l-Naqd al-Khāṭiʾ” in Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā, al-Riḥlah al-Thāminah: Dirāsāt Naqdiyyah, 7-19. Sidon: al-Maktabah al-ʿAṣriyyah, 1967.]

al-Jayyusi, Salma al-Khadra. Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic Poetry. Leiden: Brill, 1977.

al-Jayyusi, Salma al-Khadra. Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.

al-Malāʾikah, Nāzik. “Introduction to Shrapnel and Ash.” Translated by Emily Drumsta. In Global Modernists on Modernism: An Anthology, 166-175. Edited by Alys Moody and Stephen J. Ross. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.

Mikhail, Dunya, editor. Fifteen Iraqi Poets. New York: New Directions, 2013.

Moreh, Shmuel. Modern Arabic Poetry 1800-1970: The Development of its Forms and Themes Under the Influence of Western Literature. Leiden: Brill, 1976.

Moreh, Shmuel. “Nazik al-Mala’ika and al-Shi’r al-Hurr in Modern Arabic Literature.” Asian and African Studies 4 (1968): 57-84.

Sharārah, Ḥayāt. Ṣafaḥāt min Ḥayāt Nāzik al-Malāʾikah. London: Riyāḍ al-Rayyis, 1994.

Suleiman, Yasir. “Nationalist Concerns in the Poetry of Nazik al-Mala’ika.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 22, volumes 1-2 (1995): 93-114.

al-Tami, Ahmed. “Arabic ‘Free Verse’: The Problem of Terminology.” Journal of Arabic Literature 24, volume 2 (1993): 185-198.