Tamim al-Barghouti
(1977, Egypt) is a poet and political scientist. He is the only son of the Egyptian writer Radwa Ashour and the Palestine poet Mourid Al-Barghouti. Al-Barghouti is working on a publication on political identity in the Middle East and since 2007 has worked at the University of Berlin as a reseach assistant. He has published four books of poetry: Meejana (1999), Al-Manzar (2000), Qaluli Bethebb Masr (2005) and Maqam Iraq (2005). His poems regularly appear in daily papers and magazines in Egypt, Jordan and Palestine. His poems have won Al-Barghouti various prizes, including the poetry prize of the Regional Cultural Foundation in Marrakesh, Morocco. Characteristic for Al-Barghouti's style is the use of various dialects in his poems, thus he combines Palestinian, Egyptian and Iraqi dialects in combination with Modern Standard Arabic. After his study in politicfal science and international relations he worked some time for the United Nations in New York and Sudan.
(WIN 2008)Archive available for: Tamim al-Barghouti
-
Shabandar Café - Grand Café Oriental
With: Ahmed Alaidy, Ashur Etwebi, Habib Selmi, Hassan Daoud, Hatem Bourial, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Khaled Khalifa, Laila Aboezaid, Lamis Saidi, Tamim al-Barghouti, Youssouf Amine Elalamy
Shabandar Café is a programme by Gemak, the new centre for western and non-western art, politics and debate, of The Hague Gemeentemuseum and the Vrije Academie. With Shabandar Café Gemak links up with the Winternachten festival. Gemak is named after the famous meeting place of artists and intellectuals in Bagdad. Enjoy the most refined forms of Iraqi culture: live classical Arab Moqam music, an Iraqi storyteller and poetr, a short Iraqi documentary on Café Shabandar, tea and the tastiest Iraqi snacks.
The exhisition space of Gemak has been decorated for the occasion in that of the original café, destroyed in March 2007. Honorary guests: the Arab writers taking part in festival Winternachten. An English-Arabic language programme, compiled by the Iraqi visual artist Rashad Selim.
For more information on the programme see www.gemak.org. In English and ArabicShabandar is the name of a café on Al Mutanabi Street
where for decades Baghdad's cultural elites met
discussing books, poetry and politics
or dropping in for a coffee after visiting the book vendors' stalls
on the busy street outsideEverybody interested in books came here
to buy them in the good years
to sell them during the sanctions
to be transported by their covers
if they were pennilessOn the 5th of March 2007
one car bomb attack among many
destroyed Shabandar
and the book market outsideShabandar Café has left Baghdad
even if its walls are rebuilt
5000 years of urban culture
scattered to the four corners of the Earth -
Prophesies of the new generation of poets
Come and see: Seven young poets from allover the world enter the stage as modern prophets. They will conclude this Winternight prophesying with a poem assigned by the festival. What kind of future awaits us? Tamiem al-Barghuti (Palestine), Lamis Saidi (Algeria), Violetta Simatupang (Indonesia), Saskia de Jong (Netherlands), Ester Naomi Perquin (Netherlands) and Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa) read and Osama Abdulrasol and Henk de Laat will improvise on the poems on ud and bass. The poets will also read from existing work. Yra van Dijk leads the (English) programme.