Incomprehensible Lesson
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Shortlisted for the Sarah Maguire Prize 2021.
Fawzi Karim's poetry has been widely translated, among other languages into French, Swedish, Italian and English. Carcanet published Plague Lands and Other Poems (2011), which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
This new selection, translated by Anthony Howell working from the author's own versions, explores the experience of becoming at home in London, passing from a sense of exile to a sense of uneasy belonging. In his introduction the poet is tactful, candid, touching on some of the most urgent themes of our time including exile and the possibilities of home.
Between the poet, a major literary presence in his language, and his translator, a poet of many talents and skills, a kind of dialogue exists. The accommodations between two traditions formally uneasy in one another's company is compelling to read. The poet's and the translator's contrasting memories meet and confer at the level of language and image.
Born in Baghdad in 1945 and now living in London, Fawzi Karim is rapidly establishing a reputation as a major figure in contemporary poetry. Plague Lands, his first book of poems in translation, was a Poetry Book Society recommendation for 2011.; Anthony Howell's first collection Inside the Castle was brought out in 1969. His most recent book of poems is From Inside, The High Window Press, 2017.