Skip to main content
Read page text
page 2
Ali Fenjan: Stained-glass window, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm ALI FE NJ AN "The recent works of Fenjan take their strength from his desire to explore material and colour limitlessly. Everything merges: the memory of old walls of the East, the joyous teeming of colours of embroidered textiles, the world of objects embellished by time. This painter is one who inhabits light, who captures forms in movement Tahar Bekri, writer and poet Born in Iraq in 1945, Ali Fenjan was interested from a very early age in drawing and painting. With a Diploma in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, Baghad, his reputation developed with a number of exhibitions in Arab countries. Arriving in France in 1973, he enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and obtained a second diploma, in gravure and lithography. Since then, he has participated in many exhibitions, one-man and group, going from a realist and academic period (until 1975), to an involvement with nee-Surrealism (1975-80), and then researching into techniques of gravure and lithography (1980-1987). Since 1987, he has devoted himself exclusively to painting. "Fenjan has become a master in plastic art, creating harmony and contrasts, transparence and mystery. This sensitivity, very tied to the memory of his childhood and civilisation, as well as the modernity of the techniques he uses, allows him to crystalise the richness of relations between the cultures of east and west "Not one of his works has a centre. His creative impulse continues ad infinitum, like notes of music or living bodies engaged in frenetic dance. The distinct elements which make up his paintings seem to give birth to one another, in an endless dynamic. "By a play on perspective, where the spectator is an eagle flying over a landscape, each work represents traces or archeological remnants of ancient towns of the East." Asaad Arabi, painter and critic
page 3
CONTENTS No 2, June 1998 2 EDITORIAL Is there going to be a third issue? 3 SIX POEMS by Sa'adi Youssef 8 SHORT STORIES I NOVEL EXCERPTS 8 Ibrahim Asian 11 Samira Azzam 17 Khalil al-Neimi 20 Samir el-Youssef 9 Latifa Baqa 14 Yousif al-Qa'eed 18 Luay Abdelilah 23 PauJa Haydar 30 All INTERVIEW WITH ADONIS by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon 41 POETRY 41 Saleem Barakat 49 Salam Sarhan 45 Saif al-Rahbi 50 Amina Said 52 Taha Muhammad Ali 54 Basheer al-Baker 56 Mohammed Bennis 58 Tahar Bekri 59 PRIVATE SYNTHESES AllD MULTIPLE IDEllTIES Interview with poet, writer and artist Etel Adnan 82 REVIEWS 62 Susannah Tarbush: Memory for Forgetfulness 65 Anne Chamber Beinlt Blues 67 Peter Clark: Leaving Beirut 68 As' ad Khairallah: Eternite Volante 70 Stefan Weidner: Ala -al-Darb ... ma' al-Tayib Salih 71 THE MOOll DECLARES MOURlllllG . A tribute to Nizar Qabbani by Margaret Obank 72 WHAT'S BETWEEN THE POET AllD THE CHURCH? Film script by Samuel Shimon 74 TRAllSLATIOllS WITHOUT TRANSLATORS Peter Clark on Arab writers who write in English 78 THE IRAOI MIGRANT NOVEL Fabna Mohsen on developments in novel-writing among Iraqi writers 78 ... A KISS OF DEATH Zelfa Hourani of Quartet Books on the perils of publishing 79 A WINDOW ON THE WALLED BARDEii Sue Coll of Gamet Publishing on their Arab Women Writers Series 80 CONTRIBUTORS AllD TRANSLATORS Back cover: Etel Adnan painting for catalogue of art exhibition, 1979 June 1998 1

Ali Fenjan: Stained-glass window, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm

ALI

FE NJ AN

"The recent works of Fenjan take their strength from his desire to explore material and colour limitlessly. Everything merges: the memory of old walls of the East, the joyous teeming of colours of embroidered textiles, the world of objects embellished by time. This painter is one who inhabits light, who captures forms in movement

Tahar Bekri, writer and poet

Born in Iraq in 1945, Ali Fenjan was interested from a very early age in drawing and painting. With a Diploma in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts, Baghad, his reputation developed with a number of exhibitions in Arab countries. Arriving in France in 1973, he enrolled at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and obtained a second diploma, in gravure and lithography. Since then, he has participated in many exhibitions, one-man and group, going from a realist and academic period (until 1975), to an involvement with nee-Surrealism (1975-80), and then researching into techniques of gravure and lithography (1980-1987). Since 1987, he has devoted himself exclusively to painting.

"Fenjan has become a master in plastic art, creating harmony and contrasts, transparence and mystery. This sensitivity, very tied to the memory of his childhood and civilisation, as well as the modernity of the techniques he uses, allows him to crystalise the richness of relations between the cultures of east and west

"Not one of his works has a centre. His creative impulse continues ad infinitum, like notes of music or living bodies engaged in frenetic dance. The distinct elements which make up his paintings seem to give birth to one another, in an endless dynamic.

"By a play on perspective, where the spectator is an eagle flying over a landscape, each work represents traces or archeological remnants of ancient towns of the East."

Asaad Arabi, painter and critic

My Bookmarks


Skip to main content