Siamanto (1878-1915), one of the most important Armenian poets of the twentieth century was among the Armenian intellectuals executed by the Turkish government at the onset of the genocide during the first decade of the century. Available for the first time in English translation, his BLOODY NEWS FROM MY FRIEND depicts the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turkish government against its Armenian population. The cycle of twelve poems bears the imprint of genocide in a language that is raw and blunt; it often eschews metaphor and symbol for more stark representation. Siamanto confronts pain, destruction, sadism, and torture as few modern poets have.
Adonis (the pen-name of Ali Ahmad Said) was born in Syria in 1930. Syrian poet and literary critic. Born in Qassabin, Adonis studied philosophy at Damascus University and St Joseph’s University in Beirut, where he obtained his Doctorat d’Etat in 1973. After his arbitrary imprisonment for six months in 1955 for political activities and membership in the Syrian National Socialist Party, he settled in Lebanon in l956, later becoming a Lebanese national. His poetry often appears to be polarized between the mystical and the revolutionary, dissolving into a single harmonized vision. (paraphrase bio from Kamal Abu-Deeb) He was exiled to Beirut in 1956 and later became a Lebanese citizen. The founder of the influential journal MAWAQIF, a critic as well as a poet, he has exercised enormous influence on Arabic literature.
Michaux, Henri (Namen 1899 – Paris 1984) French speaking Belgian writer and painter, influenced by surrealism, traveled greatly throughout South America and Asia. These travels inspired him to write imaginary travel stories, such as VOYAGE EN GRANDE GARABAGNE (1936). His cruel, often mystical fantasies informed the greater part of his writing, which reads like an autobiography of his inner life. In his search for “artificial paradise” he turned to drugs; MISERABLE MIRACLE (1955). Because of the explosive nature of his poems, reminiscent of de Lautreamont, his works are often inaccessible. He also tried to express his inner world through painting, especially gouache.
“He who hides his madman dies voiceless” –Henri Michaux
Vallejo, César (1895-1938), Peruvian poet. Vallejo was one of the most influential yet least imitated figures of modern Spanish-American letters. He identified himself with the sufferings of the underprivileged and dedicated himself to the cause of social progress. Himself a mestizo — of Indian and white origin — he was deeply distressed by the exploitation of the Indian. His poems in HERALDOS NEGROS (1918) blend symbolism and caustic observation in terse classical form. He was imprisoned on false charges in 1920; in jail he wrote a part of TRILCE (1922). The book is somber and tragic in tone and dramatically experimental in form. In 1923 he went to Europe in self-imposed exile, espoused the Marxist cause, and aligned himself with the Republicans in the Spanish civil war. He also wrote TUNGSTEND (1931), a moving novel about the Indians. Vallejo made a meager living from journalism and died in poverty.
Celan, Paul(Czernowitz 1920 – Paris 1970). Originally given the name Paul Antschel, Celan changed the spelling after World War II. He grew up in a multilingual and multicultural society. This exposure set the precedent for his later literary career. Celan lost his parents overnight to a Nazi deportation at a young age. Witnessing the execution of his mother haunted him throughout his life, and would eventually drive him to suicide. He suffered the rigors of a German forced labor camp and subsequent Soviet occupation. After the War, Celan spent much of his life in voluntary exile in Paris, France. He suffered from recurring delusional bouts of paranoia, and took his own life by leaping into the Seine shortly after Passover in April of 1970.
Dr. Freidoun Bet-Oraham (Aturaya) (Charbakhsh 1891 – Tbilisi 1925), one of the most important Assyrian poets of the twentieth century. A military doctor, much loved by the Tsar and educated in the universities of Kharkov, Saratov and the military academy at the University of Petrograd, he graduated in 1915 and was appointed head of the military hospital in Georgia during WWI. He was later made the Chief Medical Officer for the Northern and Southern Caucasian Railways and in 1917 he was promoted to the rank of Director General of Finance to the U.S.S.R.
Dr. Freidoun was later transferred to the Russian Forces in Iran, where he served at the 492nd Army Hospital in Khoi as well as a political officer. During this time, he worked zealously for an Assyrian national home. He established an Assyrian Association in Tbilisi as well an Assyrian United Front. He also established the Assyrian National Committee in Urmia and he collaborated with the Russian vice-consul Kirsanov to organize and run a special refugee committee. Thousands of Assyrians fleeing genocide and hunger to the Transcaucasus were helped through this Red Cross assisted committee.
Dr. Freidoun established an Assyrian Library in Moscow and in Tbilisi and he also published an Assyrian magazine called “Naqusha” (Bell) as a means to awaken the nationalistic fervour in Assyrians and to advance his aim of an Assyrian national home. He was one of the many Assyrian intellectuals who supported the Russian Revolution of February 1917, and was one of the founders of the first Assyrian political party, “The Assyrian Socialist Party”. Due to his patriotism, he was called “Freidoun Aturaya” (Freidoun the Assyrian).
Dr. Freidoun was accused by some church-oriented Assyrian leaders of being pro-English or pro-French and he was arrested by the Georgian regime a few times before communists took over the country. After Soviet power began to influence Iran, Dr. Freidoun hoped for repatriation of Assyrians in the Urmia and Salamas regions. He set out on a trip to see Russian foreign minister G. Chicherin in 1921, however, this meeting was not fruitful.
Dr. Freidoun was arrested by the KGB in 1924 on charges of being a fanatic Assyrian Nationalist who inspired the Assyrians toward the hope of returning to Mesopotamia and establishing a free Assyria. It is said that he was poisoned while in prison although the Georgian government officials denied involvement in his death and instead, they asserted that he had committed suicide by hanging himself. Others have also stated that he was executed by the KGB. Witnesses who had seen him in prison before his death, noted that he had a habit of singing a poem he had written during WWI, THE EAGLE OF TKHUMA, to pass the time and give himself courage. Available for the first time in English translation, his EAGLE OF TKHUMA depicts the hopeless situation of the Assyrians who had banded together to defend themselves against the Ottoman onslaught, as it advanced its campaign of annihilation across the Persian border to the Christians of the Urmia and Salamas regions.
