NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Edited by Eric Ratcliffe, the book is described as a tribute to Abu'l-Ala, the blind son of a Syrian tent-maker, who was born in 973 AD and died in 1058, 10 years after the birth of Omar Khayyam. Although two scholars, Rihani and Baerlain, produced translations of his work in the early 1900s, it remains largely unknown in the West. This book sets out to redress the balance.

It consists of an interesting and detailed introduction by Ratcliffe, followed by quatrains in iambic pentameter by Rihani and Baerlain, along with a few alternative translations by Ratcliffe; and finally a further 28 original quatrains by Ratcliffe which pick up something of the tone of Abu'l-Ala.

Rihani favours the AABA rhyme scheme used by Fitzgerald in his translation of Khayyam, while Baerlain and Ratcliffe prefer ABBA. Inevitably the work invites comparison with Khayyam, and there are indeed many similarities. The same themes and images — transience, religion, booze, pottery, hypocrisy — recur repeatedly in both poets. Abu'l-Ala is not so wistful, though, and has a sharper edge. Another difference is in the translators, as both Rihani and Baerlain entirely lack Fitzgerald's lyrical genius. Rihani's the worst. His thee's and thou's, strangulated syntax and portentous tone must have seemed odd in the early-20th Century, while today's readers would probably see them as pastiche or even parody of Fitzgerald:

	'The grape juice is forbidden' say these folk,
	But they the law will for themselves revoke;
	The sheik tells thee he is without a garb,
	When in the tap-house he has pawned his cloak.

	My hungry Cat was slow to reach her Bowl.
	To help her move to it a little faster
	I strapped upon each paw a rolling castor,
	But now she overshoots — no Ground Control.
 
	I see Senojllib's Tent has vanished there;
	A Concrete Tower is in its Place instead.
	Hark! He shouts 'Despoilment!' from the Dead
	And curses even Head of Planning's Prayer.

It's a strange little book, and I wonder about its potential audience. Probably the main appeal will be to students of Omar Khayyam, in view of the cultural and historical context it provides for Abu'l-Ala's great successor.