Tablet and Pen

On April 8, 2010, Nasser al-Ajami, a young man from Kuwait, standing on a stage in Abu Dhabi before a television audience of millions, was crowned champion and handed 5 million dirhams (about $1 million). This was not an international sports championship but the popular UAE program Million's Poet, in which poets compete by reciting their verses.

The popularity of this television show - and, indeed, its very existence - speaks to literature's prominent place in Middle Eastern cultural life, a fact that is illuminated in Tablet and Pen, an anthology of 20th-century Middle Eastern literature that charts the region's tumultuous century through the words of Arabic, Turkish, Urdu and Persian writers. This is an important book for an urgent time.

That these writers' motivations are not purely literary is clear from the very first text included in Tablet and Pen, "The Future of the Arabic Language," by Khalil Gibran, in which the writer states "the future of the Arabic language is tied to the presence or absence of invention in all the countries that speak Arabic. Where invention is present, the future of the language will be glorious ... and where it is absent, the future will be like the present of its two sisters - Syriac and Classical Hebrew." 

This essay from Gibran - one of the best-selling poets in history - is refreshing for being a rare prose piece from the poet, and sets the tone for the entire anthology. All of the writers in Tablet and Pen take an active role in politics and culture, often railing against Western Imperialism and then berating the governments that they helped form in the imperialists' stead.

Tablet and Pen:
Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East
Edited by Reza Aslan
W.W. Norton 2011
657 pages

Interview with Reza Aslan
Editor, Tablet and Pen

The Prague Post: Is it accurate to say that poetry is a more active force in Middle Eastern culture than in the West?
Reza Aslan: This is especially true if you look at what's happening now with the young people on the streets of Tunisia, who have been chanting the verses of great Tunisian poets. In Cairo, they turned poetry into political chants. Poetry is part of everyday life for people of this region. In some ways, this could be because of the vagaries of the Arabic and Persian languages. Persian in particular opens itself up to poetic dialogue. There's an old joke about how every word in Persian rhymes with every other word.
But really this speaks to the fact that the sense of identity in this region is so inextricably wrapped up in the arts - not just literature but in music and visual arts, as well. It's a part of who these people are and how they identify themselves.

TPP: How will the ongoing revolutions in the Middle East be reflected in literature?
RA: In a way, it's already happening. I was reading some wonderful poetry from Libya in which they were already celebrating the triumph of the people's will against their dictator, who of course is still in power.
   I really look forward to the trove of writing that will come out of this time period. It will reflect the writing one saw at the beginning of the 20th century in which the written word was used as a weapon against colonialism and imperialism. Now I think we will see literature used as a weapon against the dictators of the region and as a tool to define a wholly new Middle East.

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This intensity of engagement is echoed by the active role editor Reza Aslan takes in guiding the anthology. Not only does Aslan provide an insightful introduction, he has helpfully organized these texts both geographically and chronologically. Each section, beginning with "The Language of Invention: The Renaissance of Arabic Literature, 1910-1920" and ending with "Ask Me About the Future: The Globalization of Middle East Literature, 1980-2010" begins with a timeline of important historical events that took place during the period as well as a short prose overview courtesy of Aslan, who deftly weaves history and literature.

One may raise a few small quibbles with Aslan's editorial guidance, which is overall skilled and knowledgeable. The Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, for example, is included in the section spanning 1920-1930, but one of the poems included, "Since I Was Thrown Inside," takes place 10 years into Hikmet's 28-year prison sentence (of which he served 12 years) for inciting workers and the army, a sentence the poet began in 1938.

But Aslan more often draws readers' attention to historical facts about the Middle East that they may not have previously known. For example, he points out that Reza Khan, who took power in Iran in 1921 following a military coup, "instituted a series of reforms meant to modernize Iran, including banning the veil for women and forcing men to wear 'Western' clothes, such as top hats and ties. He promoted advances in women's rights and encouraged Iranian women to earn degrees and hold jobs in the fields of medicine and law."

These actions - which are a far cry from how Iran is now perceived, and indeed, how it is governed - led to the Women's Awakening Movement, which launched many important female writers, including Parvin E'tesami, who recorded the changes in her poem "Iranian Women."

"Formerly a woman in Iran was almost non-Iranian./ All she did was struggle through dark and distressing days. ... Hearts and eyes do need a veil, the veil of chastity./ A worn-out chador is not the basis of faith in Islam."

E'tesami maintains an air of sobriety and chastity, but insists that these virtues do not depend strictly on appearance.

As Tablet and Pen progresses through the 20th century, contemporary issues begin to appear. Western readers will find familiar imagery here, particularly in Iranian literature written after 1951, when the country nationalized its oil supply. Reza Baraheni's "I Am An Underground Man" is one example.

"Now I am an underground man/ ... if you wish to see me, look into the pit/ of an oil well from the summit of Everest/ throw your matches down/ so that I can set the whole world aflame."

Poems such as this one, as well as the most contemporary poems in the anthology, which combine allusions to ancient history with images of modern technology, complete the continuum between past and present Aslan attempts with Tablet and Pen.

Poetry anthologies are a dirham a dozen and seldom outlive the circumstances of their making. Tablet and Pen is a rare anthology, for it is as acutely edited as it is well-timed. Aslan has provided a historical and literary narrative of the Middle East that will remain definitive. If it will not help us solve the problems of the present - and it will not - it may at least help us to understand their origins.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com