A new movement is emerging in Egyptian literature―urban in its energies; cosmopolitan in its national, Arabic, and western influences; and independent and rowdy in its voice. For centuries, Arabic literature mandated traditional, unchanging, highly structured language and forms. In the 1960s and 1970s, writers rebelled to write in a variety of vernaculars. Now, young Egyptian poets are inventing new ways of writing. Rejecting both traditional Arabic formalism and the vernacular rebellion―and, contradictorily, drawing equally on these traditions and others―they radically combine and recombine influences and bring new experiences into their poetry. They embrace experimentation. Rejected at first by the literary establishment, these poets founded their own magazines, one of which appropriated a derisive term that had been used to dismiss them: Locusts. Now one of Egypt's most honored translators and writers has joined with one of those Locusts to gather a selection of this postmodern writing in one place for the first time. With its edginess and play of styles, this collection showcases a dynamic, emergent scene.

Angry Voices: An Anthology of the Off-Beat New Egyptian Poets

Literature & Fiction

Metwalli, Mohamed

Poetry

University of Arkansas Press

Review\nMohamed Metwalli's A Song by the Aegean Sea transports us to Turkey's Aegean coast where a tourist described as an "Egyptian poet" observes scenes of city life from his "6th floor balcony / [i]n the Izmir Palace Hotel." Told in three sections spanning a year (each poem is dated from three trips taken in June 2013, January 2014, and June 2014), a mostly omniscient narrator paints scenes based on the poet's travels. 
A title like "Jump Cut" alludes to the collection's cinematic framework with local characters reappearing and storylines carrying through across several poems, and we learn that the tourist had wished for "stronger lighting / For scenes unworthy of filming / In his life." In the final poem, "Farewell," the speaker observes "the carcass of a dove / Struck by lightning in front of my very eyes." 
Gretchen McCullough's collaborative translation with Metwalli is full of remarkable phrases, from winter's "skittish sun" to 
[...] ships seeping their light 
From afar 
Silver and gold on the surface of dark waters 
In her introduction, McCullough notes that Metwalli composed his original text, first published in 2015, in "formal standard Arabic, not colloquial," which made me wonder whether the translation is reaching for a slightly archaic register of English. Many poems land on an emphatic exclamation point reminiscent of older poetry, moves that feel akin to making a black-and-white film in homage to the classics. 
In "A Raven, a Moon," the speaker enters into conversation with the city itself and considers what to do with "a drunken, orange half moon," musing about whether to send it skipping "on the surface of the water ... [o]r puncture it until it lands on the bed of the sea." Metwalli delights in metaphor; in "Strange Language," the speaker observes how a date "primped herself, / her mirror, the page of the sea," before they board a "boat with no intention to depart." 
REVIEWED BY LAYLA BENITEZ-JAMES--LAYLA BENITEZ-JAMES﻿ "Poetry Foundation"\nA Song by the Aegean Sea is a song for the unsung heroes of the coast of Izmir, Turkey, or Smyrna, that cosmopolitan city through the different ages. The book celebrates the underbelly of the city; the gypsies selling flowers, the roving musicians, the mussel-sellers, and the protestors. The elements of the city’s coastline are also merged with the characters in an impressionistic, yet surreal canvas from a stranger’s point of view. The traveler, i.e., the poet, or the singer of the Aegean song yearns to become part of the scene.

A Song by the Aegean Sea: A Book of Poetry

Laertes, A Press For Literary Translation, Inc.

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Books by Metwalli, Mohamed

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Metwalli, Mohamed. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Angry Voices: An Anthology of the Off-Beat New Egyptian Poets

A Song by the Aegean Sea: A Book of Poetry