A Monkey at the Window: Selected Poems - Softcover

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780372728 ISBN 13: 9781780372723

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2016

Synopsis

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today. Famous in his native Sudan, the vivid imagery of his searing, lyric poems create the world afresh in their yearning for transcendence.

In 2005 Saddiq's poems were first translated into English by the Poetry Translation Centre for their first World Poets' Tour. Since then he has received a rapturous reception from UK audiences.

In 2010 a party was organised for him at London's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology which holds a significant collection of ancient Sudanese artefacts. As a result of the success of this event (and earlier visits to the Petrie in 2005 and 2006), he was able to work in the Petrie Museum as their poet in residence during the summer of 2012. This led to a new book of poems, He Tells Tales of Meroe: Poems for the Petrie Museum (Poetry Translation Centre/Petrie Museum, 2015), which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award.

Born in Omdurman Khartoum in 1969, Saddiq has published four volumes of poetry, including his Collected Poems (Cairo, 2009). From 2006 he was the cultural editor of Al-Sudani newspaper until he was forced into exile in 2012. He claimed asylum in the UK and now lives in London.

Arabic-English dual language edition

About this title

About the Author

Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi is one of the leading African poets writing in Arabic today. He has gained a wide audience in his native Sudan for his imaginative approach to poetry and for the delicacy and emotional frankness of his lyrics. His poetry has always been concerned with the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of Sudan and its complex history.

Saddiq was born in 1969 and grew up in Omdurman Khartoum where he lived until forced into exile in 2012. From 2006, he was the cultural editor of Al-Sudani newspaper until he was sacked from his position for political reasons (along with 22 other colleagues) in July 2012 during the uprising against the dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir. Saddiq only escaped imprisonment because, thanks to the miraculous timing of the Poetry Parnassus festival at London's Southbank Centre (the world's largest ever gathering of international poets at which Saddiq represented Sudan), he was in the UK when a series of mass arrests took place. He was granted asylum in the UK and is now living in London.

Saddiq's first poetry collection Songs of Solitude was published in 1996 (second edition, 1999). He has also published The Sultan's Labyrinth (1996) and The Far Reaches of the Screen... (1999 & 2000); all three collections were published in one volume as Saddiq's collected poems in Cairo in 2009. His first British publication is the Arabic-English dual language edition A Monkey at the Window: Selected Poems, translated by Sarah Maguire and Mark Ford (Bloodaxe Books/Poetry Translation Centre, 2016).

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1780372728
• ISBN 13: 9781780372723
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120