| Desert Voices: Bedouin Women's Poetry in Saudi Arabia Contributor(s): Al-Ghadeer, Moneera (Author) |
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ISBN: 1845116666 ISBN-13: 9781845116668 Publisher: I. B. Tauris & Company OUR PRICE: $158.40 Product Type: Hardcover Published: July 2009 Annotation: The Bedouin, or "desert dwellers," have a rich cultural heritage often expressed through music and poetry. Here Moneera Al-Ghadeer provides us with the first comparative reading of women's oral poetry from Saudi Arabia. She examines women's lyrics of love, desire, mourning and grievance. We come to understand Bedouin mores and--most significantly--the unique description of a desert that is consistently held to be infinite, evocative, stimulating and an eternal freedom. As the first English translation and analysis of this poetry, "Desert Voices" is both a gesture to preserving the oral poetic tradition of Bedouin women and a radical critique addressing the exclusion of their poetry from current academic literary studies. The book provides invaluable material for reflection in the debates around oral culture and women's poetic composition while it translates, presents and critically examines a genre, which opens Arabic poetry and literature to contemporary theory and criticism. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Collections | Middle Eastern - Literary Criticism | Poetry - Literary Criticism | Middle Eastern |
| Dewey: 892.710 |
| Series: Library of Modern Middle East Studies |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6" W x 9.2" (1.20 lbs) 256 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Middle East |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The Bedouin, or 'desert dwellers', have a rich cultural heritage often expressed through music and poetry. Here, Moneera Al-Ghadeer provides us with the first comparative reading of women's oral poetry from Saudi Arabia. She examines women's lyrics of love, desire, mourning and grievance. We come to understand Bedouin mores and - most significantly - the unique description of a desert that is consistently held to be infinite, evocative, stimulating and an eternal freedom. As the first English translation and analysis of this poetry, "Desert Voices" is both a gesture to preserving the oral poetic tradition of Bedouin women and a radical critique addressing the exclusion of their poetry from current academic literary studies. The book provides invaluable material for reflection in the debates around oral culture and women's poetic composition while it translates, presents and critically examins a genre, which opens Arabic poetry and literature to contemporary theory and criticism. |