The Stone Serpent

Synopsis

In this bold epic lies an innovative poetic journey into a feature usually suppressed, a feature silenced or perhaps entirely forgotten in both the English and Arabic literary traditions. The fact is that neither tradition can be critically assessed or regarded in the same way anymore, in light of this poetic work. The Syrian poet's journey here is, in my estimation, an Eastern Serenade, a melody played in the open air by a Palmyrene knight coming from the East to liberate Regina the Celt coming from the North, a lover appearing at his beloved's balcony, inscribing a captivating testament to the power of poetic creation, and perhaps a modernist approach that turns antiquity into a literary genre that speaks through revelation and illumination. Dr. Khaldoun al-Sham'a Who is this adventurer coming from the East to free a woman in the West, naming her Regina, provoking and defying the might of Rome's system of slavery? Who is Barates of Palmyra and who is Regina the Celt, after a farmer tilling the earth in the remains of a Roman fort in the shadow of a wall that coils like a stone serpent in the heart of the British Isles unearthed the two names for us? How was it granted to a young man bronzed by the sun of Palmyra to wrap his dark arms around the waist of a red-braided Celtic girl and fall deeply in love with her, two thousand years ago, on the lush green hills near Hadrian's Wall, descending to the River Tyne, where dark-skinned men from Nineveh rowed small boats carrying loads from the ships, chanting in plaintive voices hymns that resembled strange prayers? A Palmyrene line on a Roman stone ignited the poet's imagination, and to it this surprising epic poem owes its existence. For the first time, it adds to the culture of both the Arabic and English languages, in a richly epic language, an icon of love that transcends geography and cultures, older than any icon of love bound to tragedy that we have ever known. This is a captivating poetic work that opens an enchanting existence for a story of breathtaking beauty and profound meaning, one that will endure long in the memory of Arabic culture and readers of poetry. The Publisher