Tag Archives: A Cultural Center of Our Own
Iran: Poems of Dissent
This week in Little Star Weekly we feature “In this Blind Alley,” by Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou, a poem dating from the days after the revolution of 1979. Shamlou (1925–2000) was born in Tehran and raised in the Iranian provinces, spending time in prison during World War II and after the British- and American-led coup of […]
Writers: Ahmad Shamlou, Elizabeth T. Gray Jr.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz, 100 Years
This year marks the centenary of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the great poet of modern Urdu. Faiz was born in a small Punjabi village in British India and studied English and Arabic literature in Lahore before becoming a prominent public intellectual and advocate for an independent Pakistan. He is celebrated for expanding the traditional Urdu forms […]
Writers: Agha Shadid Ali, Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Poems by Turkey’s Yahya Kemal
Evening Music translated by Sidney Wade and Yurdanur Salman In the antique gardens of Kandilli, As the evening settles, veil over veil, The aching pleasures of memory prevail. No one comes or watches from balconies. In the middle of a lonely road the breeze Is toying with the October leaves. The hours deeper and […]
Writers: Efe Murad, Sidney Wade, Yahya Kemal
Paul Bowles, Inside the cafés and salons of Morocco
“Worlds of Tangier,” Published in Holiday, March 1958 In the summer of 1931, Gertrude Stein invited me to stay a fortnight in her house at Bilignin, in southern France, where she always spent the warm months of the year. At the beginning of the second week she asked me where I intended to go when […]
Writers: Paul Bowles
Two Ghazals, translated by Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr.
LS contributor Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr., sends new translations of two ghazals, one by the fourteenth-century master of the form, Hafiz-I Shirazi, and one from 2009, written by poet Simin Behbahani after national elections in Iran ended in mass demonstrations and violent crack-down. Hafiz-i Shirazi GHAZAL [Hijab-i chehr-i jan mishavad ghubar-i manam] The dust of […]
Writers: Elizabeth T. Gray Jr., Hafiz-I Shirazi, Simin Behbahani
“The Grand Lady of My Soul,” by Goli Taraghi
In front of me, in the middle of the desert, in that silent wasteland, there is a secluded garden sheltered by white walls. A half-open door summons me. I peek in. There is no sign of a human being. There are two rows of tall poplars flanking the surrounding walls and four aged cypress trees […]
Writers: Goli Taraghi
Words Without Borders, an appreciation
Words Without Borders is a grandly ambitious project bringing international writing to American audiences. They publish an online monthly journal homing in on a language or culture or theme somewhere in the world, as well as expansive anthologies and curricula
Looking for More? Other new writing from the Muslim world
In addition to Tablet & Pen, featured in Little Star this week, there are suddenly lots of opportunities to sample writing old and new from the Muslim world in English, such as Beirut 39: New Writing From The Arab World, edited by Samuel Shimon for the Hay Festival in Wales, with an introduction by a […]
Editorial: A Cultural Center That Can Hold
According to Mapquest, the offices of Little Star are 1.93 miles from 51 Park Place. I don’t know if that puts us within the range of sanctity felt to govern the thoughts and deeds of those who live in lower Manhattan. Acrid smoke did float over our building on September 11, 2001, and streams of […]
Writers: Ann Kjellberg
Posted in Editorial
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