Abdelwahab Meddeb
Abdelwahab Meddeb | |
|---|---|
French Tunisia | |
| Died | 5 November 2014 (aged 68) |
Abdelwahab Meddeb (
University of Paris X-Nanterre.[1]
Biography and career
Meddeb was born in
Collège Sadiki. Thus began an intellectual trajectory nourished, in adolescence, by the classics of both Arabic and French and European literatures.[2]
In 1967, Meddeb moved to
University of Paris X-Nanterre. Between 1992 and 1994 he was co-editor of the journal Intersignes, and in 1995 he started the journal Dédale.[citation needed] His first novel, Talismano, was published in Paris in 1979 and quickly became a founding text of avant-garde postcolonial fiction in French.[citation needed] At the time, he was "considered in France as one of the best young writers from North Africa".[3]
After
guarantor of democracy that would reconcile Islam with modernity. His vigilant point of view derived from what he called the "in-between" space ("l’entre deux") that he occupied as a North African writer based in France, and from the responsibility of being a public intellectual. His erudite historical and cultural analyses of world events led to many publications, interviews and radio commentaries. His carefully researched and well-argued 2002 study, La Maladie de l’Islam (translated and published in English as The Malady of Islam) traces the historical and cultural riches of medieval Islamic civilization and its subsequent decline. The resulting posture, "inconsolable in its destitution", writes Meddeb, gave root to modern Islamic fundamentalism, a fact embodied by the modern Arab states' attachment to the archaic, Manichaean laws of "official Islam." The book also explores the tragic consequences of the West's exclusion of Islam.[5]
From editorials in the French newspaper Ben Ali regime.[7]
Overview of literary work
 | This section possibly contains original research. (January 2016) |
From his earliest essays, novels, poems and editorial work in the mid-1970s onward, Meddeb's writing has always been multiple and diverse, forming an ongoing literary project that mixes and transcends
genres. His texts are those of a polymath
.
The movement and rhythms of his French sentences are commensurate with the meditations of a narrator who is a
postmodern forms, emphasizing the esthetic, spiritual and ethical aspects of Islam. His work, translated into over a dozen languages, opens onto and enriches the dialogue with contemporary world literature
.
Literary prizes
2002 – Prix François Mauriac, La Maladie de l’Islam
2002 – Prix Max Jacob, Matière des oiseaux
2007 – Prix international de littérature francophone Benjamin Fondane – Contre-prêches
Bibliography
Available in French
- Talismano 1979; 1987
- Phantasia 1986
- Tombeau d’Ibn 'Arabi 1987
- Les Dits de Bistami 1989
- La Gazelle et l’enfant 1992
- Récit de l’exil occidental par Sohrawardi 1993
- Les 99 Stations de Yale 1995
- Ré Soupault. La Tunisie 1936-1940. 1996
- Blanches traverses du passé 1997
- En Tunisie avec Jellal Gasteli et Albert Memmi 1998
- Aya dans les villes 1999
- Matière des oiseaux 2002
- La Maladie de l’Islam 2002
- Face à l’Islam entretiens avec Philippe Petit 2003
- Saigyô. Vers le vide avec Hiromi Tsukui 2004
- L’Exil occidental 2005
- Tchétchénie surexposée avec Maryvonne Arnaud 2005
- Contre-prêches. Chroniques 2006
- La Conférence de Ratisbonne, enjeux et controverse avec Jean Bollack et Christian Jambet 2007
- Sortir de la malédiction. L’Islam entre civilisation et barbarie 2008
- Pari de civilisation 2009
- Printemps de Tunis 2011
- Histoire des Relations entre Juifs et Musulmans des Origines à nos Jours, co-dirigé avec Benjamin Stora 2013
Books in English translation
- The Malady of Islam. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Trans. ISBN 0-465-04435-2
- Islam and Its Discontents. London: Heinemann, 2004.(British Edition)
- Tombeau of Ibn' Arabi and White Traverses. With an afterword by Jean-Luc Nancy. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: Fordham University Press. 2009.
- Talismano. Translated and Introduction by Jane Kuntz. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2011
- Islam and Challenge of civilisation.Translated by Jane Kuntz, New York, Fordham University Press, 2013
- A History of Jewish-Muslim Relations - From the Origins to the Present Day, co-directed with Benjamin Stora, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2013
Poems and interviews
(in periodicals, online, and in collections)
- Abdelwahab Meddeb. "Islam and its Discontents: An Interview with Frank Berberich ,” in October 99, Winter 2002, pp. 3–20, Cambridge: MIT, trans. Pierre Joris.
(All translations below by Charlotte Mandell)
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, "The Stranger Across", in Cerise Press, Summer 2009, online:[9]
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, "At the Tomb of Hafiz," in The Modern Review, Winter 2006, Vol. II, Issue 2, pp. 15–16.
- Maram al-Massri, "Every night the birds sleep in their solitude" and Abdelwahab Meddeb, "Wandering" in The Cúirt Annual 2006, published by the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway, April 2006, pp. 78–80.
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, "California apple with no apple taste" (poem), in Two Lines: A Journal of Translation, XIII, published by Center for the Art of Translation, 2006, pp. 188–191.73-80.
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, selections from "Tomb of Ibn Arabi," in The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry, ed. Mary Ann Caws, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2004, pp. 418–419.
Filmography
- "Miroirs de Tunis", Raul Ruiz, dir. 1993.
See also
- Islamic Modernism
References
- Some of the content of this article comes from the equivalent French-language Wikipedia article:[10]
- Andrea Flores Khalil, The Arab Avant-Garde: Experiments in North African Art and Literature. Westport, Ct.: Praeger, 2003.
- Naceureddine Elafrite, "Tunisie. Abdelwahab Meddeb: 'L'Islamisme est une interprétation pauvre, bête et détestable de l'Islam'", Le Courrier de l'Atlas, 11 December 2012.
- Ronnie Scharfman, Nomadism and Transcultural Writing in the Works of Abdelwahab Meddeb, in L’Esprit créateur, Lexington, Ky.: Vol. XLI, No. 3, Fall 2001, pp. 105–113.
Notes
- ^ "Mort de l'essayiste et romancier Abdelwahab Meddeb (1946-2014)" (in French). Le Monde. 6 November 2014.
- ^ Abdelwahab Meddeb. Face à l’islam. Entretien mené par Philippe Petit. Paris: Textuel, 2004. pp. 20-88. This volume consists of a series of three long interviews with the author.
- ^ Roche, Anne. "Review of Passport to Arabia, Maghreb: New Writing from North Africa". Wasafiri. 9: 73–74.
- ISBN 978-1-933633-51-0.
- ^ Abdelwahab Meddeb. The Malady of Islam. Translated by Pierre Joris. New York: Basic Books, 2003.
- ^ - The English translation of “Pornography of Horror.”
- ^ Alain Gresh, La maladie d’Abdelwahab Meddeb et la révolution tunisienne, Le Monde Diplomatique, 27 juillet 2011.
- ^ Abdelwahab Meddeb. Talismano. Paris: Sindbad-Actes Sud. 1987. Forthcoming in English from Dalkey Archive Press, University of Illinois.
- ^ Cersiepress.com
- ^ fr:Abdelwahab Meddeb
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Abdelwahab Meddeb.
- Signandsight.com Abdelwahab Meddeb: The Pornography of Horror
- Michael Mönninger, Abdelwahab Meddeb: Islam's Heritage of Violence
- The English Pen Online World Atlas - Abdelwahab Meddeb
- Sweeping Our Own Backyard: UNESCO
- Abdelwahab Meddeb—Islam and the Enlightenment
- The international artist database Archived 14 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine
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