Sayed Gouda

Sayed Gouda (born 1968 in Cairo) is an Egyptian poet and novelist.^[1] He majored in the Chinese language. Sayed Gouda won a first prize of poetry in 1990 before he migrated to Hong Kong in 1992. He has twelve books in total four of which are poetry in the Arabic language and two novels in the English language called Once Upon a Time in Cairo'’ and ‘'Closed Gate and six books of poetry in translation. He has translated hundreds of poems from and into Arabic, Chinese, and English. His works and translations have appeared in Arabic, English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Macedonian, Uzbek, Thai, and Mongolian. Currently he is the editor of a literary website called Nadwah in five languages: Arabic, Chinese,English, French, and German. Sayed Gouda has organized a monthly literary salon in Hong Kong since April 2004. Most of his translations have already been published in several periodicals in Egypt, China, and Hong Kong. Sayed Gouda has been invited to participate in many international poetry festivals around the world like Man Hong Kong Literary Festival in Hong Kong (2002–2007), International Poetry Festival of Cairo in Egypt (2007, 2009), Qinghai International Poetry Festival in China (2007, 2011, & 2013), Struga Poetry Nights in Macedonina (2009), Mid-Autumn Poetry Festival in Beijing and Anhui (2014). He is a holder of PhD from City University of Hong Kong. His dissertation is a comparative study of the revival of traditional forms in contemporary poetry. His research focuses mainly on Arabic, Chinese, English, French, and German poetics. Other research interests include comparative poetics, comparative literature, and prosody studies.

Works Published

Poetry Collection in Arabic:

• Dukhan al-Hub ['The Smoke of Love'], 1990. Dar al-Mashriq al-Arabi, Cairo.
• Tasa’ulat Cassandra al-Hazina ['The Sad Questions of Cassandra'], 2005. Merit, Cairo.
• Bayn inkisar al-Hulm wal Amal ['Between a Broken Dream and Hope'], 2005. Sanabil, Cairo.
• Fi Hadat al-Layl [In the Quiet of the Night'’], 2015. Nadwah, Hong Kong.

Poetry in Translation:

• Prophet of the Poets, 2008. Makavej, Skopie. (a collection of poems translated in Macedonian language published in Macedonia).
• Fi Hadat al-Layl ['In the Quiet of the Night'], 2015. Nadwah, Hong Kong (with the support of Hong Kong Arts Development Council).
• Wo shi ni chengwei wode gudu 我使你成为我的孤独 [I Made You My Solitude'’], 2015. Qinghai People’s Publishing House, Qinghai, China.

Novels in English:

• Once Upon a Time in Cairo, 2006. Balcksmith, Hong Kong.
• Closed Gate, 2015. Nadwah, Hong Kong (with the support of Hong Kong Arts Development Council).

Translation Works:

Poetry Translation from Arabic into English and Chinese:

• A Bottle of Glue 一瓶膠水, 2007. Nadwah Press, Cairo.

Poetry Translation from Chinese into Arabic:

• Lahibu Narin wa Kalimat, Jidi Majia [‘Flames and Words, Poetry by Jidi Majia'], 2014. Saqi, Beirut.

Poetry Translation from English into Arabic:

• Hadithul Ruh [Baring the Soul'’], 2015. Nadwah Press, Cairo.
• Amakin Samawiya [Heavenly Places'’], 2015. Nadwah Press, Cairo.

Upcoming Works

• Anthology of Modern Arabic Poetry translated into English and Chinese
• Anthology of Modern Chinese Poetry translated into Arabic
• Abu Nuwas and Li Bai: Life and Poetry – comparative study
• In the Quiet of the Night – Collection of Poems

Prizes

• Honorary prize for the poem 'Night Train' from the World Chinese Poetry Journal. May 2014.
• The Enchanting Poet Award of The Enchanting Verses Literary Review. November 2012.
• First prize in a poetry competition at Al-Alsun Faculty. March 1990.

What They Say about Sayed Gouda

The Peruvian poet Jorge Palma says about the poet: Sayed Gouda, el poeta, no negocia, presenta su mundo particular, su paraíso perdido, y con la verdad (la suya, intransferible) se revela. Desde su propia montaña, se declara abiertamente en contra de la Injusticia, el desorden, en una realidad dislocada; poesía en verdadero contrapunto con un mundo vacío de contenido, donde el poeta queda solo, anunciando sus verdades frente a la incomprensión de un mundo distraído, mayoritariamente carente de sensibilidad.

[Sayed Gouda, the poet, does not negotiate. He presents his own world, his paradise lost, and with the truth – his own, non-transferable – he reveals himself. From his own mountain, he speaks out openly against injustice and disruption in a disjointed reality; poetry in stark contrast with a world devoid of substance, where the poet is left alone, announcing his truths in the face of the incomprehension of an inattentive world largely devoid of sensitivity.]

Moroccan critic bin-Isa bu-Hmalah says about his collection of poems Between a Broken Dream and Hope: ‘. . . we can sketch the poetic identity that floats in the book and represents the poet himself. That poetic identity that has the same characteristics of migration, supremacy, and prophethood in an immoral, miserable, and unpoetic world that represents the ugly face of the world . . . [the poet’s] overwhelming sense of prophethood, together with the image of a crucified prophet, is similar to the image of Jesus in its universal imagination. This is what the poet proclaims in the headline that prefaces his collection: (O my heart, crucified on the pole of dream, / you look at them from above, in renunciation / they see you crucified, / void of will / but you see them an emptiness, / a mere illusion)’.

Egyptian poet and critic Yasser Uthman writes about his poem 'Under the Cross of Spartacus': ‘This poem has what satisfies the desire of interpretation and answers the reader’s instinct as he searches for the three dimensions of the poem’s words. . . . The text, selected here, is fond of employing signs and infatuated for playing the game of symbols and persona’.

References