Ghada al-Samman

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Ghadah Al-Samman
Arabic, English, French
Notable worksNo Sea in Beirut
The Departure of Old Ports
Beirut Nightmares

Ghadah Al-Samman (

University of Damascus. She is distantly related to poet Nizar Qabbani, and was deeply influenced by him after her mother died at a very young age.[citation needed
]

Career

Her father was fond of both Western literature and

Arabic
: عيناك قدري) in 1962, which was received reasonably well. However, at the time she was lumped in with other traditional feminine writers. Her later publications took her out of this milieu of feminine and love novels, and into wider social, feminist and philosophical spheres.

She graduated from the Syrian University in 1963 with a BA in English literature, and left to

Arabic
: ليل الغرباء).

The

Arabic: احمل عاري إلى لندن). After that she did not publish any books for six years. Instead, her journalistic articles became closer to the social reality and made her popular. The articles she wrote during that period became the source of some of her later publications. In 1969 she joined the weekly news magazine of Salim Lawzi, Al Hawadeth, as a correspondent.[3]

In 1973 she published her fourth collection, The Departure of Old Ports (

Arabic: بيروت 75), at the end of 1974. The novel describes the complex social problems in Beirut and prophesied the upcoming turmoil a few months before the civil war
broke out in Lebanon.

After the publication of two more novels, Beirut Nightmares (

Arabic: ليلة المليار) in 1986, some critics began referring to her as the most prominent modern Arab writer.[citation needed
]

Personal life

In the late 1960s al-Samman married Bashir Al Daouq, the owner of Dar Al Tali’a publishing house and had her only son, Hazim, which she named after one of her heroes in Foreigners' Nights. She later started her own publishing house and re-published most of her books. Further, she edited all her articles in a series she called “The Unfinished Works” (

Swiss bank, which she promises to publish when the time is right.[citation needed
]

In 1993 she caused a scene in the literary and political arenas when she published a collection of love letters written to her by

Palestinian Cause. Al-Samman has also written a few books of literary criticism, and translated some of her works to other languages. She has lived in Paris since the mid-1980s and regularly writes in an Arabic magazine published in London.[clarification needed
]

Al-Samman's mother died when she was young, so she was raised by her father for most of her life. When she was an adult, Samman's father died and she lost her job in a short period of time. People in her society had a traditional frame of mind and saw her as a “fallen woman”.[citation needed]

Selected works

Short stories

Poetry

  • حب (Hubb), “Love”, 1973.
  • أعلنت عليك الحب ('Alanat 'Alayk Hubb), “I Declare Love Upon You”, 1976.

Novels

Autobiography

  • الرواية المستحيلة: فسيفسا ءدمشقية (Al Ruayah Al Mustahilah: Fasifasa' Dimashqiya), The Impossible Novel: Damascene Mosaic, 1997.

See also

References

  1. ^ "غادة السمان: أيقونة الحرية في الشعر العربي | مجلة الجرس" (in Arabic). Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  2. ^ "الدمشقي العتيق… أحمد السمان | القدس العربي". 2019-04-24. Archived from the original on 2019-04-24. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  3. .

Sources