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Towards the End
Towards the End presents thecontemporary world as broken and dying, a world that is moving irreversiblytowards collapse as well as rebirth. The collection begins with the speaker'sdisillusion with the ideals of capitalism, and the ironic realisation thathappiness and prosperity may no longer be attainable. The middle section of thecollection reflects, with dark humour and a controlled anger, on thedysfunction of our socio-political systems and the signs of theirdisintegration. The final poems in the book imagine a universal humanity beyondthe failures of the contemporary world, and prophesy global resistance,rejuvenation and revolution. The collection may be described as a fusion ofsocial satire, gothic dystopia and historical materialism, interwoven withautobiographical reflection.
The Last Days of Jeanne D'Arc
"Jeanne is a young woman from rural France. She's a knight who wears men's clothing. The English call her Joan of Arc. Jeanne has led France to victory in epic battles. She hears ghostly voices and has unspeakable desires. The English want to burn her. Her king has abandoned her. Her heart has been broken. Her heart cannot be burnt. This is her story, and the story of her beloved. Ali Alizadeh's novel The Last Days of Jeanne d'Arc is a provocative new portrait of the life of one of history's most fascinating figures. Countless books have been written about the young Frenchwoman who claimed to hear the voices of saints, led the armies of France in the war against England in the Middle Ages, and was captured and burnt for heresy by her enemies. Based on a rigorous study of the historical material, The Last Days of Jeanne d'Arc provides the first serious dramatisation of Jeanne's sexuality. Alizadeh uses an innovative storytelling technique that weaves together multiple narrative perspectives to tell the story of a courageous young woman who, driven by a passion for justice and forbidden desire, changes the course of Western history."
Transactions
An electric collection of fiction from the Prime Minister's Prize shortlisted author.
Fifty Poems of Attar
The 13th century Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar is renowned as an author of short lyrics written in the Persian language. Dealing with themes of love, passion and mysticism, this book presents the English versions of Attar's poetry. It also offers an analysis of Attar's poetic language and thought.
Iran
Both revolutionary and reactionary, the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been a conundrum for Western observers. A theocracy that aspires to a popular mandate; an anti-colonial state with imperial pretensions of its own: modern Iran is in many ways a reflection of its struggle to reconcile its traditions with the challenges of modernity. In this book, Ali Ansari takes readers on a journey through Iran’s turbulent history. Beginning with the country’s fall from grace as a Great Power in the nineteenth century, he explores its repeated attempts to modernize in a series of revolutionary movements from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 to the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the civil unrest that is breaking out today. In so doing, he reveals how the experience of history and Iran’s encounter with ‘modernity’ have come to define it – and set it on an authoritarian path in confrontation with the West and, often, its own people.
Ashes in the Air
Alizadeh finds grace, wit and fire in this latest volume of poetry which explores themes such as fatherhood and migration. It ranges from the Tehran of Alizadeh's childhood to the Australian coast of his teenage years. From the opening poem's hymn to mobility and renewal to the elegiac ending, Ashes in the Air sparks with wisdom and energy.
Marx and Art
This book argues that a renewed consideration of artistic value should both critique contemporary bureaucratic misunderstandings of what art is and address the complexities and questions of contemporary philosophers in new and provocative ways. Writer and poet Ali Alizadeh focusses on the artistic theories of the key Western philosopher of value, Karl Marx. He explores Marx’s thoughts on art and literature and provides a new account of his revolutionary view of why we make art and how we understand art’s value. By returning to Marx’s writings, from his juvenile poetry and earliest journalism to his final publications, Alizadeh proposes a theory which not only challenges many tenets of contemporary Marxist literary or cultural theory, but one which also presents us with a profound, coherent and stimulating theory of art that defines, values and demonstrates artistic practice. By mapping Marx’s intellectual development from the ideals of a young Hegelian to the polemics of a seasoned internationalist communist he shows that Marx never lost sight of art as a key aspect of human activity.
Six Vowels and Twenty Three Consonants
Edited and translated by John Kinsella and Ali Alizadeh, this bilingual edition is a groundbreaking collection of poems presenting the wealth of poetic voices from one of the world's most vital literary cultures. The book covers poetry from the early Middle Ages to the Modernists and Postmodernists of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Iran
A vanished, tattered black and white photograph, taken in Tehran in 1946. The image of a sombre and inscrutable middle-aged man called Salman Fuladvand, a lieutenant and controversial police chief under Iran's second last king. It is the memory of this photograph that begins Ali Alizadeh's story of his grandfather Salman's life, spanning Salman's youthful devotion to the advancement of his country and the emancipation of Iranian women, his conflicts with the shahs, his wrongful imprisonment, and his eventual embracing of Sufi mysticism. Iran My Grandfather is a rare mix of narrative, memoir, history and personal exploration. It recounts Iran's journey from progressive idealism to the ravages...
Eyes in Times of War
This collection of poems speaks to an individual's place and emotions during war. The wars depicted in this volume - the 'history wars', the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, 'the war against terror', 'the clash of civilisations', etc - form the background against which the speaker's language seethes and writhes. These fractured lyrics - or 'antiheroic couplets' - take place in a volatile space in the aftermath of ancient conquests and prior to future atrocities. Here the medieval Persian poet Rumi is seen escaping the Mongolian hordes; Satan debates Archangel Michael at the battle of Heaven and Hell; the Jewish thinker Walter Benjamin contemplates the Holocaust; an imprisoned writer becomes a sav...
