Fuad Rifka

Fuad Rifka
Fuad Rifka
Born	December 28, 1930; Infidels, Tartous, Syria
💀Died	May 13, 2011 (80 years old); Beirut, LebanonMay 13, 2011 (80 years old)
🏳️ Nationality	Syria, Lebanon
🎓 Alma mater	University of Tübingen (Degree: Doctor of Philosophy)
💼 Occupation	poet, translator, philosopher, university professor
🏅 Awards	Goethe Prize 2010

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Fuad Rifka, a Syrian-Lebanese poet and translator, was born in 1930 in the Syrian village of Kafrun on the outskirts of Wadi al-Nasara in the Tartous Governorate. He died on May 13, 2011, in Beirut. According to his will, his body was transferred to the Kafirun to be buried there.

Early life[edit]

Fuad Rifka has been inclined since his childhood to nature and meditation. He spent most of his time in the orchards and prairies with the unbelievers and the smell of earth, air, and water. This crystallized his poetic memory and marked that space.

He received his primary education at the Evangelical School in the city of Safita and began writing poetry at an early age. When he was 13 years old, he recited his first poem during a theater performance at the school. The first of his works was a small book entitled: “In the Paths of the Sunset” in 1955, which he later denied and did not include in his poetic works.

Beirut - Germany[edit]

Fuad moved with his family to Lebanon when he was ten years old. He continued his complementary and secondary studies at the American Boys School in Tripoli. Fuad then moved (1949) to the American University of Beirut. He completed his studies there until he obtained a master’s degree in Western philosophy for a thesis where he dealt with an English philosopher that belonged to the positivism school.

However, Germany opened its arms to him with a scholarship from the University of Tübingen to hold a doctorate in philosophy on the authority of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger for a thesis entitled: “The Theory of Poetry for Martin Heidegger” in the year 1965, and this prompted him later to translate Rilke, Trakl, Holden, Hermann Hesse, Novalis, and others.

Upon his return from Germany in 1966, Fuad was appointed as Professor of Western Philosophy at Beirut University College, whose name is today the Lebanese American University. She remained in this position until his death.

In 1973 he married Sana Nassar, and they had one son, Elias.

Poem magazine[edit]

He participated with the Lebanese poet Youssef Al-Khal in publishing Poetry magazine in 1957, and in 1961 he published his first poetry collection, “Anchor on the Gulf,” published by Poetry Magazine. He is considered a companion of the generation of poets of the avant-garde Beirut poetry magazine. However, he did become the most famous poet, nor did he strive to maintain the “purest poet” within this group (the phrase for the poet Adonis), before he stumbled into Lebanese politics, but instead he chose voluntarily to stay until The end is in a place similar to “Khirbet Al-Soufi” (the title of one of his collections) to delve into his philosophical, poetic meditations.

Poetry and philosophy are twins[edit]

Dr. Faud Rifka translated several great German poets and philosophers, such as Goethe Rilke, Hölderlin, Novels, Trakl, and Hermann Hesse, into an anthology of modern German poetry; Ever since he accidentally signed at the Goethe-Institut in Beirut an English translation of "Duino's Laments" by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke until he was taken in.

Fuad, who solitude and contemplation of existence, found himself drawn to the translation of selections from German poetry, which gave him a new meaning of life and led him to discover the secrets of self, existence, love, and death, which earned him the highest appreciation from cultural circles in Germany culminated in the award of the Goethe Prize in 2010.

In his study of philosophy in Germany, he was convinced that poetry and philosophy are twins. His analysis of German poetry and German philosophy affected his life throughout his life, as the human experience influenced him, the view of existence, contemplation, and thought about what German poetry abounds.

It is noteworthy that the translation from French and English was more like a suggested reference for the modernity of Arabic poetry in the fifties of the twentieth century. This means that Fouad Rebekah's efforts have an added value by referring to various works in the world of the poetry of that era. Moreover, "the eternity that the poet chased in the works of his German peers must preserve his name in our memory after his absence."

Faud says: "Poetic expression is a sign, an arrow in the direction of the truth," The poet, then, is that watcher with sharpened senses who can sometimes capture the luster of that truth translate it into words. Therefore, the poetic experience must pass the test of patience and wait before finding its vocabulary, form, and images. As for the poet, he is nothing but a medium through which the poem expresses and becomes embodied.

From his poems[edit]

He left with dozens of poetry collections, poetic and philosophical literature, translations, and "Baydar" - the title of one of his books - was the nickname he loved.

He says in the poem "Bashq" from the book "The Return of the Boats":

"A metal cage/ From its holes/ Bashq glimpses the woods/ The smell of the ruggedness: spins/ turns around/ stumbles/ falls/ in his feathers disappears/ under the corpses of pictures/ He, and the hair lumberjack are two friends."

In his book "The Elegy of the Cat Bird," published by Nelson House in 2009, he says:

"Just as a poet loves death / The closer he comes to death."

and say:

"A ghost-like death crosses / O death, go away until I see it / Then take what the waves have left / From the traces of my life."

and say:

"Invisible beings, powers that do not know sleep, you who chart the course of the wind and the fate of ships, we pray to you, save him by death from what is crueler than death."

He addresses death in his latest book, "The Roller of Death and Endless Concerns," published by Nelson House in 2011, praising himself, saying (pg. 4):

"O death / O roller, you do not know boredom."

And in (pg. 13), he says:

"O death, thank you / what is left / maybe he will finish it in a kingdom / there is no time / no limits: / spread flowers on his body."

In (pg. 43) of his book "The Roller of Death," he says:

"He became a woodcutter who sees / what the birds intuit and what / the friendly wind moves."

Rebekah had begun the first stanza of al-Muhdalah's poem with this dialogue:

"- Who are you?

- the owner of the land

- what do you want?

- to clear the place

- for whom?

For a new tenant."

Poetic and translated works[edit]

1961: "Mirsat Ala Alkhaleej" (Anchor on the Gulf)
1965: "Haeenu Alataba" (nostalgia threshold)
1970: "Alushb Allathi Yamoot" (The Grass That Dies)
1973: "Alshier Wa Almaout" (Poetry and Death)
1975: "Alamat Alzaman Alakheer" (Signs of the End Times)
1982: "Anhar Barriya" (Wild Rivers)
1988: "Yaomiyyat Hattaab" (Hattab's Diary)
1990: "Sallat Alsheikh Darweesh" (Sheikh Darwish Basket)
1993: "Kasaed Hindi Ahmar" (Read Hindi Poems)
1995: "Jarrat Alsammirrai" (The Samaritan Urn)
1998: "Kharbat Alsoofi" (Khirbet Al Sufi)
2000: "Kharbashat Fi Jasad Alwaqt" (Doodles in the body of time)
2000: "Bayder"
2003: "Amtar Kadeema" (Old Rain)
2009: "Shaeer Fi Raroon" (Poet in Raron)
2009: "Awdat Almarakib" (The Return of the Boats)
2009: "Marthiyat Taer Alkuta" (Elegy of a Sandgrouse Bird)
2010: "Tamareen Ala Alhaiku" (Haiku exercises)
2011: "Mihdalat Almaout Wa Humoom La Tantahi" (Death roller and endless worries)

"Mukhtarat Min Sheir Railaka Wa Holdern Wa Helrman Hesa" (Selections from the poetry of Rilke, Holderlin, and Hermann Hesse

External links[edit]

References[edit]

طبعات مكتبة ألمانيا الوطنية (DNB): DNB, Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

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