Poetry at the heart
The desert city is like a mirage. If the visitor sticks to what is in front of his eyes, it will be difficult for him to conceive that a few decades ago Dubai was nothing more than a village living from pearl fishing, an epinal image that was already evoked by the Venetian Gaspero Balbi in the 16th century in the account of his oriental journey. The territory, rather inhospitable, would have welcomed tribes in flight. It is said that then the literature was of oral tradition, sometimes punctuated by the sound of drums, and that it served as a comfort to fishermen and camel drivers. Thus, the region is the one that saw the birth of Nabati poetry, a legacy of the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula and mentioned, perhaps for the first time, by the scholar Ibn Khaldun in Al Muqaddimah.
In a language intelligible to all, simple and clear rather than formal and classical, chivalrous stories were told that advocated solidarity, love of the clan and of the desert. It is to one of the most famous Nabatean poets, Mubarak Al Oqaili, born in Saudi Arabia, but immigrated to Dubai at the end of the 19th century, that we can pay homage in the district of Deira, where we can still see the house he had built in 1923. No doubt that a visit to this heritage jewel will offer another, much less expected, facet of the city.
Tagrooda is a form of Bedouin sung poetry. It is inscribed on the list of intangible cultural goods of UNESCO. It consists of poems of 7 lines or less that are repeated in echoes by two groups of men. They were sung during camel crossings to encourage the men, but also the animals. Usually the first verse is sung by the leader of the group and repeated by the rest of the troop. These are messages to those we love, to the camels, to the tribal leaders. Since then, these legacies have been recorded and catalogued, as they are a testimony of historical facts.
Nowadays, Dubai, like its big brother Abu Dhabi, is witnessing a renewed interest in this literary genre which has even become the subject of televised competitions. Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, an emir with important political functions who was born in Dubai in 1949, has been practicing it since his adolescence, while practicing Arabic poetry of a more classical nature. In 1998, he created a foundation called Mohammed bin Rashid Knowledge Foundation, whose mission is to promote local culture and knowledge to visitors and natives.
Another name, another fame, that of Khalid Albudoor who was born in the heart of the Emirate in April 1961, and began publishing in 1980. With simplicity, to touch all souls, his poetry is dedicated to the acts of everyday life, which are nevertheless adorned with an ounce of spirituality. A public figure - he was a radio and television presenter, as well as a documentary filmmaker - he was awarded the Youssef Al Khal Prize in Lebanon in 1991. His main collections, Night and Jabr Wa Ghazal, published in 1992 and 1999 respectively, are unfortunately not available in our language. Khalid Albudoor has also contributed to the preservation of his country's cultural heritage by publishing a five-volume anthology of Nabati poems, and by collecting folk tales and songs.
Finally, a young poet, born in 1977, symbolizes Dubai in its ethnic multiplicity, it is indeed Tunisia that Walid Amri decided to leave to come work in the Emirate where he joined a private bank. In addition to his talent for painting, which he has demonstrated by exhibiting in prestigious American galleries, he has developed a talent for writing, which is now being published in French by L'Harmattan. His Fractal Poems published in September 2016 are presented as an "essay in poetic physics, a vade mecum of mystical chemistry".
Editorial production
If poetry is intrinsic to the soul of Dubai, and more broadly to that of the Gulf, other literary genres only really made their appearance and found their audience at the very beginning of the 20th century, no doubt thanks to the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) in 1988. Today, few authors still write prose, but Mohammad Al Murr, born in Dubai in 1955, has published some fifteen collections of short stories and has been particularly successful with The Wink of an Eye and Bleeding Heart. In the public sphere, he has also headed the Dubai Cultural Council, which has merged with the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, and served as a juror for The International Priz for Arabic Fiction in 2009.
If authors are still shy, or if their reputation struggles to cross borders, even digital ones, a Union of Emirati Writers was nevertheless created in 1984 and has a few hundred members, a dozen more each year, a rather slow evolution that should be compared with the creation in 2009 of the UAE Publishers Association. For the moment, local production is focused on children's literature, and authors are rarely translated into English, but this perspective is benefiting from a significant growth and thus a tendency to open up to other perspectives.
However, the publishing industry is doing better and better, encouraged by the large number of translations of foreign books into Arabic. As an example, the Tarjem initiative, supported by the Mohammed bin Rashid Foundation, has funded 1,000 projects in 2008, leaving the door open to best-sellers written in different languages. It is also thanks to this sponsorship that an Encyclopedia of Arabic Narration has been published, a first that allows us to understand the richness of a culture that is too often ignored.
Another way of opening up is of course the organization of literary festivities that welcome international actors from the world of books, such as the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature, which in its first edition welcomed 65 writers from all over the world and is becoming more and more successful every year. On a more regular basis, organizations such as the French Institute welcome writers in residence and organize meetings, notably with Dubai students. Finally, as a sign that shopping malls are not incompatible with culture, the Dubai Mall hosts the huge Kinokuniya bookstore where books from all over the world can be found. French speakers, for their part, will be pleased to know that on Al Nasr Square, not far from the Alliance Française, there is a French bookstore, Culture & Co, which has a nice selection of books in French. An address to keep in mind in case of a last minute emergency!
