Sat & Sun, 5 & 6 July, and Tues 8 July 2008
Syrian Poets in UK
at the Ledbury Poetry Festival and London Review Bookshop
Make a date with Syrian poets this July – in Ledbury and in London
Hala Mohammad, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky visit the UK for events at the Ledbury Poetry Festival and at the London Review Bookshop.
Little is known in the UK of literary life in Syria, but there’s an extraordinarily vibrant cultural and literary scene. Some of the Arab world’s greatest 20th-century modern poets came from this region – Yousef al-Khal and Adonis who started the ground-breaking poetry magazine Sh’ir in 1957, which was an incredible powerhouse publishing all the Arab poets who were overturning centuries of traditional fixed metre and liberating it with free verse and prose poems.
The late Nizar Qabbani and Mohammad al-Maghut, also from Syria, were pioneers of passion and real life in their works, achieving phenomenal reputations all over the Arab world.
Hala Mohammad, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky are four exceptional individuals who make huge contributions to today’s artistic and literary life in Syria in other spheres as well as in poetry: Hala is a successful documentary film-maker – a taster of her work will introduce the 5 July event; Monzer is a painter; Rasha directs the annual Al-Sindiyan festival of culture; and Lukman, an indefatigable journalist with his own column in a daily newspaper, also co-founded the satirical newspaper Al-Dumery, and then started Alif magazine for new writing, as well as finding time to adapt fiction for television and theatre and performing as an actor.
All events are being organised in association with Banipal.
Poetry and Censorship: Four Syrian Poets
Saturday 5 July
5.30pm - 6.30pm
Market Theatre, Ledbury
Four Syrian poets, Hala Mohammad, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran andLukman Derky travel to Ledbury for this exclusive event, and through performance and discussion reveal the latest trends in Arab poetry, arts and writing
Syrian Poetry and Music
Sunday 6 July
8.00pm-10.00pm
The Barn at Hellens, Much Marcle
An evening of poetry and music with Hala Mohammad, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky and renowned oud player Attab Haddad.
• Please scroll down for more information about the authors
Attab Haddad trained with the Iraqi soloist Ahmed Mukhtar in London and at the Arab Oud House in Cairo with Iraqi virtuoso Naseer Shama and Egyptian soloist Nihad El Sayad.
• The visit of the poets to the UK is being made possible by the support of The Arab British Centre, Banipal, the British Council and Ledbury Poetry Festival
 
• For a map showing where Ledbury is, click here
• For information on where to stay overnight, click here
• To book a seat for either Ledbury event, click here ______________________________
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Tuesday 8 July
7pm. Doors open 6.30
London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL Breaking through: Syrian writers in conversation and performance
Hala Mohammed, Monzer Masri, Rasha Omran and Lukman Derky, four Syrian poets – who are also a film-maker, a painter, an arts festival director, and a journalist / scriptwriter – in conversation on writing, publishing and the arts in Syria today – and in performance. There will be readings of poems, newly translated for the latest issue of Banipal, No 31, which includes a major feature on contemporary Syrian literature.
Booking essential as seating is limited. Full price tickets are £6. Discounted tickets for LRB and Banipal subscribers are £4. Phone credit card hotline on 020 7269 9030 to book discounted tickets. To book a full-price place, click here
Free wine and nibbles after the event
Hala Mohammad has directed several successful documentary films about Syrian writers, some broadcast on satellite TV channels, including Al-Jazeera. Born in Lattakia, Syria, she studied film-making in Paris and worked as a costume designer for two well-known Syrian films, al-Lail and Sandouq al-Dunya. Since 1994 she has published three collections of poetry.
 Monzer Masri is a poet and painter, also from Lattakia, Syria, where he still lives. He published his first collection of poetry in 1979 (Syrian Ministry of Culture). His second was written with his sister, the poet Maram al-Massri who lives in France, and the late Syrian Mohammed Sayda. In 1997 and 2004 he published two collections of poems, with a third coming out later this year, 2008 (all Riad El-Rayyes, Beirut).
Rasha Omran is the director of Al-Sindiyan festival of culture. Born in Tartus, Syria, in 1964, she has published three collections of poetry.
Lukman Derky has worked for television and theatre as writer, actor, author, also writing in Syrian and Arabic newspapers, with a daily column in Baladna, a Syrian paper. He is a co-founder of the satirical newspaper Al-Dumery, and founder of Alif magazine for new writing, and has published six collections of his own poetry and one of short stories. A member of Aleppo University’s literary circle in the 1980s, he was born in Derbassiya, Syria, in 1966, and lives now in Damascus.
• The visit of the poets to the UK is being made possible by the support of The Arab British Centre, Banipal, the British Council, Ledbury Poetry Festival and Literature Across Frontiers
Poems of all four poets have been specially translated for the events and are published in Banipal 31, Spring issue. To buy a copy direct from Banipal, before the event, click here.
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