Abdelwahab Meddeb
Encyclopedia
Abdelwahab Meddeb is an award-winning French-language
poet, novelist, essayist, translator, editor, Islamic scholar, cultural critic
, political commentator
, radio producer
, public intellectual
and professor of comparative literature
at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.
in 1946, into a learned and patrician milieu. His family’s origins stretch from Tripoli
and Yemen
on his mother’s side, to Spain
and Morocco
on his father’s side. Raised in a traditionally observant North Africa
n Muslim family, Meddeb began learning the Qur'an
at age 4 from his father, Sheik Mustapha Meddeb, a scholar of Islamic law
at the Zitouna, the great mosque and university of Tunis. At age 6 he began his bilingual education
at the Franco-Arabic school that was part of the famous Collège Sadiki. Thus began an intellectual trajectory nourished, in adolescence, by the classics of both Arabic and French and European literatures.
In 1967, Meddeb moved to Paris to continue his university studies at the Sorbonne
in art history
. He has lived there ever since, traveling the world as a poet, writer, translator, cultural critic, invited lecturer, scholar-in-residence and visiting professor
.
In 1970-72, he collaborated on the dictionary Petit Robert
des noms propres, working on entries concerning Islam and art history. From 1974-1987 he was a literary consultant at Sindbad publications, helping to introduce a French reading public to the classics of Arabic and Persian literatures as well as the great Sufi writers. A visiting Professor at Yale University
and the University of Geneva
, Meddeb has been teaching comparative literature since 1995 at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. Between 1992 and 1994 he was co-editor of the journal Intersignes, and in 1995 he created his own journal, Dédale, all the while producing works of fiction, poetry, and translation. His first novel, Talismano, was published in Paris in 1979 and quickly became a founding text of avant-garde
postcolonial fiction in French.
Since 9/11 his work, always informed by what Meddeb terms his “double genealogy,” both western and Islamic, French and Arabic, has included an urgent political dimension. An outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism
, he is a staunch proponent of secularism
(“la laïcité”) in the French Enlightenment
tradition, as the necessary guarantor of democracy that would reconcile Islam with modernity
. His vigilant point of view derives from the privilege of what he calls the “in-between” space (“l’entre deux”), and from the responsibility that comes with the position of public intellectual as a North African writer based in France. His erudite historical and cultural analyses of world events impacted by Islamic extremism
have led to innumerable publications, interviews and radio commentaries. In response to 9/11 and its grave aftermath, Meddeb published his important study, La Maladie de l’Islam in 2002 (since translated and published in English as The Malady of Islam). This carefully researched and argued book traces the historical and cultural riches of medieval Islamic civilization
, eventually “inconsolable in its destitution,” the subsequent roots of Islamic fundamentalism and the modern Arab states’ attachment to the archaic, manichean laws of “official Islam,” and finally, the tragic consequences of the West’s exclusion of Islam.
From editorials in the French newspaper Le Monde
on the Israeli invasion of Gaza (i.e., 13 Jan. ’09), to Obama’s “Cairo Speech”
(4 June 2009), to his two weekly radio programs, "Cultures d’Islam" at 'Radio France
Culture' and "Point de Vue" at Médi 1
(broadcast from Tangiers, Morocco), to his television appearances and his online interviews, Meddeb uses the media as a forum for exploration and debate. His work juxtaposes writers and scholars from East and West, engaging subjects that are historical, cultural, religious, political, and thereby challenging the stereotypes that Muslims and Europeans hold about each other. A voice of tolerant Islam, Meddeb is no stranger to controversy from militant Muslim quarters.
.
The movement and rhythms of his French sentences are commensurate with the meditations of a narrator who is a flâneur
, a walker in the city, and a poet without borders. Associative imagery allows the writing to nomadize across space and time, to dialogue with writers such as Dante
and Ibn Arabi
, the Sufi poets
and Mallarmé
, Spinoza, Aristotle
and Averroes
(Ibn Rushd), along with the poets of classical China and Japan. Formally, Meddeb practices what he calls an “esthetics of the heterogeneous,” playing with different literary forms from many traditions, including the European modernist novel, pre-Islamic
Arabic poetry
, the medieval mystical poets of Islam, Japanese Haiku
, and so on. Although he writes only in French, his work as a translator of medieval Arabophone poets, as well as his conscious literary ambition to “liberate the Islamic referent from its strict context so that it circulates in the contemporary French text” marks his writing with enigmatic traces of ‘otherness.” His privileging of these Arabic and Persian literary precursors explores archaic cultural resources in postmodern forms, emphasizing the esthetic, spiritual and ethical aspects of Islam. His work, translated into over a dozen languages, opens onto and enriches the dialogue with contemporary world literature
.
, La Maladie de l’islam
2002 – Prix Max Jacob
, Matière des oiseaux
2007 – Prix international de littérature francophone Benjamin Fondane
– Contre-prêches
and Ann Reid ISBN 04650443522
Islam and Its Discontents. London: Heinemann, 2004.(British Edition)
Tombeau of Ibn’ Arabi and White Traverses. With an afterword by Jean-Luc Nancy
. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: Fordham University Press. 2009.
Talismano. Translated and Introduction by Jane Kuntz. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, Ill: University of Illinois Press. 2011.
(All translations below by Charlotte Mandell)
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
poet, novelist, essayist, translator, editor, Islamic scholar, cultural critic
Cultural critic
A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole and typically on a radical basis. There is significant overlap with social and cultural theory.-Terminology:...
, political commentator
Pundit (politics)
A pundit is someone who offers to mass media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area on which they are knowledgeable. The term has been increasingly applied to popular media personalities...
, radio producer
Radio producer
A radio producer oversees the making of a radio show. There are two main types of producer. An audio or creative producer and a content producer. Audio producers create sounds and audio specifically, content producers oversee and orchestrate a radio show or feature...
, public intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
and professor of comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
at the University of Paris X-Nanterre.
Biography and career
Abdelwahab Meddeb was born in Tunis, TunisiaTunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
in 1946, into a learned and patrician milieu. His family’s origins stretch from Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
and Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
on his mother’s side, to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
on his father’s side. Raised in a traditionally observant North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n Muslim family, Meddeb began learning the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
at age 4 from his father, Sheik Mustapha Meddeb, a scholar of Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
at the Zitouna, the great mosque and university of Tunis. At age 6 he began his bilingual education
Bilingual education
Bilingual education involves teaching academic content in two languages, in a native and secondary language with varying amounts of each language used in accordance with the program model.-Bilingual education program models:...
at the Franco-Arabic school that was part of the famous Collège Sadiki. Thus began an intellectual trajectory nourished, in adolescence, by the classics of both Arabic and French and European literatures.
In 1967, Meddeb moved to Paris to continue his university studies at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
. He has lived there ever since, traveling the world as a poet, writer, translator, cultural critic, invited lecturer, scholar-in-residence and visiting professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
.
In 1970-72, he collaborated on the dictionary Petit Robert
Petit Robert
Le Petit Robert is a popular single-volume French dictionary first published by Paul Robert in 1967, an abridgement of his eight-volume Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française....
des noms propres, working on entries concerning Islam and art history. From 1974-1987 he was a literary consultant at Sindbad publications, helping to introduce a French reading public to the classics of Arabic and Persian literatures as well as the great Sufi writers. A visiting Professor at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and the University of Geneva
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland.It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin, as a theological seminary and law school. It remained focused on theology until the 17th century, when it became a center for Enlightenment scholarship. In 1873, it...
, Meddeb has been teaching comparative literature since 1995 at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. Between 1992 and 1994 he was co-editor of the journal Intersignes, and in 1995 he created his own journal, Dédale, all the while producing works of fiction, poetry, and translation. His first novel, Talismano, was published in Paris in 1979 and quickly became a founding text of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
postcolonial fiction in French.
Since 9/11 his work, always informed by what Meddeb terms his “double genealogy,” both western and Islamic, French and Arabic, has included an urgent political dimension. An outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism
Islamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
, he is a staunch proponent of secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
(“la laïcité”) in the French Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
tradition, as the necessary guarantor of democracy that would reconcile Islam with modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
. His vigilant point of view derives from the privilege of what he calls the “in-between” space (“l’entre deux”), and from the responsibility that comes with the position of public intellectual as a North African writer based in France. His erudite historical and cultural analyses of world events impacted by Islamic extremism
Extremism
Extremism is any ideology or political act far outside the perceived political center of a society; or otherwise claimed to violate common moral standards...
have led to innumerable publications, interviews and radio commentaries. In response to 9/11 and its grave aftermath, Meddeb published his important study, La Maladie de l’Islam in 2002 (since translated and published in English as The Malady of Islam). This carefully researched and argued book traces the historical and cultural riches of medieval Islamic civilization
Muslim world
The term Muslim world has several meanings. In a religious sense, it refers to those who adhere to the teachings of Islam, referred to as Muslims. In a cultural sense, it refers to Islamic civilization, inclusive of non-Muslims living in that civilization...
, eventually “inconsolable in its destitution,” the subsequent roots of Islamic fundamentalism and the modern Arab states’ attachment to the archaic, manichean laws of “official Islam,” and finally, the tragic consequences of the West’s exclusion of Islam.
From editorials in the French newspaper Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
on the Israeli invasion of Gaza (i.e., 13 Jan. ’09), to Obama’s “Cairo Speech”
A New Beginning
"A New Beginning" is the name of a speech delivered by United States President Barack Obama on June 4, 2009, from the Major Reception Hall at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar University co-hosted the event...
(4 June 2009), to his two weekly radio programs, "Cultures d’Islam" at 'Radio France
Radio France
Radio France is a French public service radio broadcaster.-Mission:Radio France's two principal missions are:* To create and expand the programming on all of their stations; and...
Culture' and "Point de Vue" at Médi 1
MEDI 1
Médi 1 Radio is a private, commercial Moroccan radio network owned by various banks and private companies from both Morocco and France. The station started broadcasting in 1980 and is based in Tangier, Morocco....
(broadcast from Tangiers, Morocco), to his television appearances and his online interviews, Meddeb uses the media as a forum for exploration and debate. His work juxtaposes writers and scholars from East and West, engaging subjects that are historical, cultural, religious, political, and thereby challenging the stereotypes that Muslims and Europeans hold about each other. A voice of tolerant Islam, Meddeb is no stranger to controversy from militant Muslim quarters.
Overview of the Literary Work
From his earliest essays, novels, poems and editorial work in the mid-1970s onward, Meddeb’s writing has always been multiple and diverse, forming an on-going literary project that mixes and transcends genres. His texts are those of a polymathPolymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
.
The movement and rhythms of his French sentences are commensurate with the meditations of a narrator who is a flâneur
Flâneur
The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks...
, a walker in the city, and a poet without borders. Associative imagery allows the writing to nomadize across space and time, to dialogue with writers such as Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
and Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...
, the Sufi poets
Sufi poetry
Sufi poetry has been written in many languages, both for private devotional reading and as lyrics for music played during worship, or dhikr. Themes and styles established in Punjabi Poetry, Sindhi Poetry, Arabic poetry and mostly Persian poetry have had an enormous influence on Sufi poetry...
and Mallarmé
Mallarmé
Mallarmé can refer to:* Stéphane Mallarmé , French poet and critic.* François-René-Auguste Mallarmé , politician during the French Revolution....
, Spinoza, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Averroes
Averroes
' , better known just as Ibn Rushd , and in European literature as Averroes , was a Muslim polymath; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Islamic theology, Maliki law and jurisprudence, logic, psychology, politics, Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine, astronomy,...
(Ibn Rushd), along with the poets of classical China and Japan. Formally, Meddeb practices what he calls an “esthetics of the heterogeneous,” playing with different literary forms from many traditions, including the European modernist novel, pre-Islamic
Jahiliyyah
Jahiliyyah is an Islamic concept of "ignorance of divine guidance" or "the state of ignorance of the guidance from God" or "Days of Ignorance" referring to the condition in which Arabs found themselves in pre-Islamic Arabia, i.e. prior to the revelation of the Qur'an to Muhammad...
Arabic poetry
Arabic poetry
Arabic poetry is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry is categorized into two main types, rhymed, or measured, and prose, with the former greatly preceding the latter...
, the medieval mystical poets of Islam, Japanese Haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
, and so on. Although he writes only in French, his work as a translator of medieval Arabophone poets, as well as his conscious literary ambition to “liberate the Islamic referent from its strict context so that it circulates in the contemporary French text” marks his writing with enigmatic traces of ‘otherness.” His privileging of these Arabic and Persian literary precursors explores archaic cultural resources in postmodern forms, emphasizing the esthetic, spiritual and ethical aspects of Islam. His work, translated into over a dozen languages, opens onto and enriches the dialogue with contemporary world literature
World literature
World literature refers to literature from all over the world, including African literature, American literature, Arabic literature, Asian literature, Australasian literature, Caribbean Literature, English literature, European literature, Indian literature, Latin American literature, Persian...
.
Literary Prizes
2002 – Prix François MauriacFrançois Mauriac
François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...
, La Maladie de l’islam
2002 – Prix Max Jacob
Max Jacob
Max Jacob was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.-Life and career:After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, France, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic career...
, Matière des oiseaux
2007 – Prix international de littérature francophone Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane
Benjamin Fondane or Benjamin Fundoianu was a Romanian and French poet, critic and existentialist philosopher, also noted for his work in film and theater. Known from his Romanian youth as a Symbolist poet and columnist, he alternated Neoromantic and Expressionist themes with echoes from Tudor...
– Contre-prêches
Books in English translation
The Malady of Islam. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Trans. Pierre JorisPierre Joris
Pierre Joris, born in Strasbourg, France in 1946 and raised in Ettelbruck, Luxembourg, is a poet and translator. He left Luxembourg at nineteen and since then has lived in the US, Great Britain, North Africa and France...
and Ann Reid ISBN 04650443522
Islam and Its Discontents. London: Heinemann, 2004.(British Edition)
Tombeau of Ibn’ Arabi and White Traverses. With an afterword by Jean-Luc Nancy
Jean-Luc Nancy
Jean-Luc Nancy is a French philosopher.Nancy's first book, published in 1973, was Le titre de la lettre , a reading of the work of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, written in collaboration with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe...
. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: Fordham University Press. 2009.
Talismano. Translated and Introduction by Jane Kuntz. Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, Ill: University of Illinois Press. 2011.
Poems and interviews
(in periodicals, online, and in collections)- Abdelwahab Meddeb. “Islam and its Discontents: An Interview with Frank Berberich ,” in October 99, Winter 2002, pp. 3–20, Cambridge: MIT, trans. Pierre Joris.
(All translations below by Charlotte Mandell)
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, “The Stranger Across,” in Cerise Press, Summer 2009, online:
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, "At the Tomb of Hafiz," in The Modern ReviewModern ReviewModern Review has been used as a name for a number of magazines:* Modern Review * Modern Review * Modern Review...
, Winter 2006, Vol. II, Issue 2, pp. 15–16. - Maram al-Massri, "Every night the birds sleep in their solitude" and Abdelwahab Meddeb, "Wandering" in The Cúirt Annual 2006, published by the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway, April 2006, pp. 78–80.
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, "California apple with no apple taste" (poem), in Two Lines: A Journal of Translation, XIII, published by Center for the Art of Translation, 2006, pp. 188–191.73-80.
- Abdelwahab Meddeb, selections from "Tomb of Ibn Arabi," in The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry, ed. Mary Ann CawsMary Ann CawsMary Ann Caws is an American author, art historian and literary critic.She is currently a Distinguished Professor of English, French and Comparative Literature at the Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is an expert on Surrealism and modern English and French literature,...
, New Haven & London: Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
, 2004, pp. 418–419.
External links
- Abdelwahab Meddeb: The Pornography of Horror
- Michael Mönninger, Abdelwahab Meddeb: Islam's Heritage of Violence
- The English Pen Online World Atlas - Abdelwahab Meddeb
- Sweeping Our Own Backyard: UNESCO
- Abdelwahab Meddeb—Islam and the Enlightenment
- Culturebase.net | The international artist database | Abdelwahab Culturebase.net]