Álvaro Mutis arrives in the Arab world with a poetry anthology / Akhbar Al-Youm

On August 25, 2023, it will be 100 years since the birth of Alvaro Mutis. However, since the beginning of this year, several Colombian poets have been honoured. Now, one more is being added: a bilingual Spanish/Arabic poetry anthology, initiated by the Colombian Embassy in Lebanon, the Cervantes Institute in Beirut, the Abertis Foundation and the Beirut Digital District.

The book is titled regardsIt contains 83 pages in Spanish and Arabic. The work is divided into three parts, consisting entirely of 24 poems by Álvaro Mutis. In addition to two additional poems in the first pages of the book: Loneliness And News from Hodeidah.

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Elissar Al-Sanea Asmar, Gael Dagher, Heba Al-Hassania, Khaled Laharrach, Salma Mtawaki, Samir Modi and Idris Ould Al-Haj participated in the translation into Arabic. All of them have collaborated on publications of POCENAR, “a program whose objectives include publishing the works of Cervantes Prize-winning poets in Arab countries, highlighting the work of young translators and promoting intercultural dialogue,” the document states. introduction to regardsWritten by Yolanda Soler Onis, Director of the Cervantes Institute in Beirut.

In fact, Mutis received the Cervantes Prize in 2001. Four years earlier he had already received another Spanish recognition: the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature.

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in regardsLiterary critic Álvaro Ruiz Rodela has written four pages recounting some biographical moments of Mutis and his work. “It is almost inevitable, then, to think of a form of contradiction in Motis’ work: confinement versus flight; Deprivation against freedom; Defeat as a guide and teacher; The disaster of life against the abundance of poetry; “The celebratory song of things is also the song of death and oblivion.”

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