Falah Al-Shabender and I: A Follow-up Dialogue: Texts, Comments, Responses and Questions

The book is written in Arabic. It contains a review and a critique of the literary work of Iraqi poet Falah Al-Shabender as a part of contemporary Arabic poetry. In order to get a better understanding of Al-Shabender’s poetic style, which is characterized by postmodernism tendencies, and his thoughts, which he expresses in deep symbolism, the Author/Critic, Al-Hashimi, follows an innovative way of criticism by involving the poet in a direct dialogue-interview. This innovative way, of mixing criticism with one- to-one dialogue, with the poet, in combination with testimonials and opinions of other critics, refutes and disagrees with Roland Barthes’s “Death of the Author” theory. It brings the author back into the picture but not all the way as the classical way of criticism does. It is half way between the classics and Roland Barthes. English translation of a couple of Al-Shabender’s poems, as well as their original Arabic text, is included at the end of the book with a sample appearing on the back cover.