Come, Take a Gentle Stab

Salim Barakat is a Kurdish-Syrian writer who has published dozens of novels and poetry anthologies. Raised in northern Syria, he lived in Beirut and Cyprus before settling in Sweden, where he lives today. Huda J. Fakhreddine is the author of several novels. She teaches Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Jayson Iwen is the author of several books. He is professor of writing and English literature at The University of Wisconsin-Superior.

• Every Insider Shall Hail Me and Every Outsider Too (1973)Dinoka Breva, Come, Take a Gentle Stab (excerpt)Union of LineagesPike (1980)Dylana and Diram (excerpt)With the Same Traps, with the Foxes that Ride the Winds (1982)Fog Composed like a GentlemanRevengeThe Recklessness of Sapphire (1996)Ledgers of Plunder (excerpt)Digression in an Abridged ContextConfrontations, Pacts, Troughs, and Others … (1997)Plastics (excerpt)Ran’s FarmFrom Syria (2015)From All the Doors (2017)Lineages of Animal (2019)DogTurtleFleaFishHomo Erectus

"Barakat's exceedingly resistant and exhilaratingly strange verse--paradoxically written by someone who seems absolutely rooted to the depths of the earth while yet able to see humanity as if through the mind of some other being, perhaps language itself--is finally available to English readers. One can only hope that Huda Fakhreddine and Jayson Iwen's resounding translation summons greater interest in the work of this astonishing modern master."--Ammiel Alcalay, poet, scholar, critic, and translator