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Border-Living Border-Crossing in the Modern Persian Poetry
Abstract
A quick glance at the current state of teaching, exploration, and translation of Persian literature on the global level shows the extent to which Afghan poets have been constantly overlooked or understudied by the major scholars of the field. Barely we come across modern Persian poetry or modern world literature anthologies, major literary translation or research projects which the works of pioneering modern poets of Afghanistan have been included as representatives of today’s Persian literature on the world stage. One of the consequences of such an exclusionary approach to engage this body of literature with the contemporary world literary narratives has been the absence of Afghan literature in the category of world border literature. This void becomes more palpable if we compare the case of Afghanistan with other similar examples such as the Mexican-US border literature on the world stage and mainstream awareness. This presentation briefly examines literary narratives of global migration in the poetry of Elyas Alavi who is often listed among the most prominent poets of Afghanistan but his outstanding work is yet to receive scholarly attention it deserves. I will focus on Alavi’s long poem Brother Khosrow (K?k Khosrow, 2013), published in his recent collection, Frontiers (Hod?d, 2014) as an example of world border literature with particular attention paid to three key themes: displacement, exilic existence and liminal living.
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
Iran
Sub Area
Persian