Ashur Etwebi
(1952, Libiya is a poet, translator and novelist. His first novel Dardanin (2001) was seen by some critics as a turning point in the history of the de Libyan novel, while conservatives cannot appreciate the news style of the book. Since 1993 Etwebi has published five collections of poetry: Poems of the Terrace (1993), Your Friends Passed This Way (2002), River of Music (2004), A Box of the Old Laughs (2005)en Poems from Above the Hill (2006). The fact that he renders his poems in prose form has resulted in a lot of aversion from conservative and 'classical' authors. Etwebi's work is often anthologised in both the Arab world and in Europe. As a translator Etwebi translated poetry by W.B. Yeats and anthologies belonging to American, Lithuanian, French and Canadian modern poetry. Etwebi teaches at the Zawia Teaching Hospital, Zawia University.
(WIN 2008)Share this page
Archive available for: Ashur Etwebi
-
Shabandar Café - Grand Café Oriental
With: Ahmed Alaidy, Ashur Etwebi, Habib Selmi, Hassan Daoud, Hatem Bourial, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Khaled Khalifa, Laila Aboezaid, Lamis Saidi, Tamim al-Barghouti, Youssouf Amine Elalamy
Shabandar Café is a programme by Gemak, the new centre for western and non-western art, politics and debate, of The Hague Gemeentemuseum and the Vrije Academie. With Shabandar Café Gemak links up with the Winternachten festival. Gemak is named after the famous meeting place of artists and intellectuals in Bagdad. Enjoy the most refined forms of Iraqi culture: live classical Arab Moqam music, an Iraqi storyteller and poetr, a short Iraqi documentary on Café Shabandar, tea and the tastiest Iraqi snacks.
The exhisition space of Gemak has been decorated for the occasion in that of the original café, destroyed in March 2007. Honorary guests: the Arab writers taking part in festival Winternachten. An English-Arabic language programme, compiled by the Iraqi visual artist Rashad Selim.
For more information on the programme see www.gemak.org. In English and ArabicShabandar is the name of a café on Al Mutanabi Street
where for decades Baghdad's cultural elites met
discussing books, poetry and politics
or dropping in for a coffee after visiting the book vendors' stalls
on the busy street outsideEverybody interested in books came here
to buy them in the good years
to sell them during the sanctions
to be transported by their covers
if they were pennilessOn the 5th of March 2007
one car bomb attack among many
destroyed Shabandar
and the book market outsideShabandar Café has left Baghdad
even if its walls are rebuilt
5000 years of urban culture
scattered to the four corners of the Earth -
lord horror: international poetry reading
'At night lord horror's going out,' Lucebert prescribed to our foreign guest poets. Toghether with Dutch poet and P.C. Hooft Prize winner Eva Gerlach, Ashur Etwebi (Libya) and Tan Lioe Ie (Indonesia) read their poetry, presenting their lord horror. Listen and shiver! After the reading poetry expert and 'reader between the lines' Yra van Dijk talks to the poets about poetry and fear. Friday night 10.35 - 11.50 pm, filmhuis 7. In English.
