Publisher Description

Abdul Kader El-Janabi's A Horseback Afternoon is a selection of poems which encompasses a life in writing, spanning forty years, from 1975 to 2015. Abdul Kader El-Janabi's poetry carves deep into the history of literature. Self described as a "tiger of languages in a jungle of dictionaries", El-Janabi writes with a nod to the surrealist tradition, mixed with the broad technicolour brushstrokes of old masters like Charles Baudelaire, Denise Levetov, and Wallace Stevens.

Author Biography

Abdel Kader El Janab is a poet born in Baghdad in 1944. He settled in France after living in London and Vienna and in 1973, in Paris, he founded the first surrealist Arabic review, Le Désir Libertaire, which was banned in the Arab world.

Review

This astonishing book celebrates language's endless powers of renewal in the hands of a master, and it underlines surrealism's enduring relevance and political and cultural importance in a world that becomes more unreal, hyper-real and, yes, surreal every day.- Ian McMillan, The Verb (BBC Radio 3)

Review Quote

This astonishing book celebrates language's endless powers of renewal in the hands of a master, and it underlines surrealism's enduring relevance and political and cultural importance in a world that becomes more unreal, hyper-real and, yes, surreal every day. - Ian McMillan, The Verb (BBC Radio 3)

Details