Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East

804 Pages·2010·2.2 MB·English

by  Reza Aslan

TABLET & PEN
OTHER WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS ANTHOLOGIES
Literature from the “Axis of Evil”: Writing from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and
Other Enemy Nations The ECCO Anthology of International Poetry
The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain
Words without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers
TABLET & PEN
Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East
A Words without Borders Anthology
EDITED BY
REZA ASLAN
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
New York • London
This book is dedicated to the people of Iran.
Whoever keeps you and me from being we, let his
house cave in.
If I don’t become we, I’m alone.
If you don’t become we, you are just you.
Why not make The East arise again?
Why not force open the hands of the vile?
If I rise, if you arise, everyone will be roused.
If I sit,
if you take a seat, who will take a stand?
Who will fight the foe, grapple the foul enemy hand
to hand?
—from “Blue, Grey, Black” by HAMID MOSADIQ
(1969)
Translated from the Persian by SHOLEH WOLPÉ
and TONY BARNSTONE
TABLET AND PEN
I shall not cease to feed this pen, but still Keep record of what things pass
through the soul, Still gather means for love to work its will, Keep green
this age round which blank deserts roll.
Though these days’ bitterness must grow sharper yet, And tyrants not
renounce their tyranny,
I taste their bitter wrongs without regret,
But while breath lasts will nurse each malady—
While yet the tavern stands, with its red wine Crimson the temple’s high
cold walls; and while My heartblood feeds my tears and lets them shine,
Paint with each drop the loved one’s rosy smile.
Let others live for calm indifferent peace;
I listen to earth’s pangs, and will not cease.
—FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
Pakistan
Translated from the Urdu by V. G. KIERNAN
This book would not have been possible without the contributions of the
following regional editors: Arabic: MICHAEL BEARD
Michael Beard teaches at the University of North Dakota and publishes
frequently on Persian and Arabic literature. His first book, Hedayat’s Blind Owl
as a Western Novel, is a study of modernism in Iran. Among his many
translations is (with Adnan Haydar) Adonis’s Mihyar of Damascus, His Poems
(Aghânî Mihyâr al-Dimashqî, 2009). He coedits the journal Middle Eastern
Literatures Incorporating Edebiyât, as well as the series Middle East Literature
in Translation for Syracuse University Press.
Persian: SHOLEH WOLPÉ
Sholeh Wolpé is the author of Rooftops of Tehran (Red Hen Press), The Scar
Saloon (Red Hen Press), and the translator of Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh
Farrokhzad (University of Arkansas Press), for which she was awarded the Lois
Roth Translation Prize in 2010. She is the guest editor of the 2010 Iran issue of
Atlanta Review and the poetry editor of the Levantine Review, an online journal
about the Middle East. Her poems, translations, essays, and reviews have
appeared in scores of literary journals, periodicals, and anthologies worldwide,
and have been translated into several languages. Born in Iran, she now lives in
Los Angeles.
Urdu: ZEENUT ZIAD
Zeenut Ziad was assistant professor of economics at the University of Karachi
and the first woman executive in Pakistani banking. She also served as the
director of the Staff College of a major commercial bank and as an economic
consultant for the World Bank. Her publications include The Magnificent
Mughals (Oxford University Press, 2002). She is also working on the translation
of the nineteenth-century Urdu text on Sufi ethics, The Radiant Dawn.

Words without Borders gratefully acknowledges Amazon.com for its grant in
support of the publication of Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the
Modern Middle East.
Contents
Introduction
PART ONE: 1910–1950
I. The Language of Invention: The Renaissance of Arabic Literature, 1910–
1920
KHALIL GIBRAN
The Future of the Arabic Language
YAHYA HAQQI
The First Lesson
TAWFIQ AL-HAKIM
Diary of a Country Prosecutor
‘ARRAR
Are You Intoxicated?
The Sheikh Says…
My Kinsmen Say “Leave her!”
‘ABD AL-RAHIM MAHMUD
The Aqsa Mosque
II. My Country: The Nationalization of Turkish Literature, 1920–1930
AZIZ NESIN
Istanbul Boy
NÂZIM HIKMET
I Love My Country
The Epic of Sheikh Bedreddin
Since I Was Thrown Inside
REFIK HALIT KARAY
The Gray Donkey
III. Once Upon a Time: Politics and Piety in Persian Literature, 1930–1940
MOHAMMAD ALI JAMALZADEH
Persian Is Sugar
SADEGH HEDAYAT
The Blind Owl
NIMA YUSHIJ
Cold Ashes
O People!
PARVIN E’TESAMI
Iranian Women
A Woman’s Place
IV. Rise Up! Pakistan and the Independence of Urdu Literature, 1940–1950
SA‘ADAT HASAN MANTO
For Freedom’s Sake
ISMAT CHUGHTAI
The Quilt
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
The Houri and the Poet
Heaven and the Priest
God’s Command to the Angels
MIRAJI
Far and Near
Devadasi and Pujari
I Forgot
N. M. RASHED