About the Book
● A CELEBRATION OF FLAMES by FAROUK ASVAT
♦ WINNER OF THE VITA AWARD " ''A Celebration Of Flames'' is a powerful, impassioned call. The sanity and courage of this collection arises from the poet's unique experiential perceptions of his milieu, making him one of the few who can write about these traumatic times with such lucidity and lyricism. The strength of Farouk Asvat's poetry lies in the way he intertwines the complex elements of social and political conflicts with intense personal relationships. The wide tonal range extends from sensual and delicate insights into the nature of passion to the satiric and humorous use of slang."
● VITA AWARD citation by ● Lionel Abrahams, editor, Purple Renoster & Sesame
"Like hesitating snowflakes his words are fascinating in their capricious wilfulness
- like unexpected strokes of a whip."
● Susanne Baackmann, University Of Albuquerque, USA
"The legend of poet extraordinaire Farouk Asvat: - like vintage wine, proper poetry matures with time, and like vintage art the voice and wisdom of a poet worth the name is timeless."
● Mphutlane wa Bofelo, kagablog
"His love poetry soars with an intense sensitivity, it celebrates lyrically the joys of a most exquisite sensuousness."
● Marcia Leveson, University of the Witwatersrand, The Indicator
"Farouk Asvat writes about love and suffering, about individualism, snobbishness, pretence and pride, about human and environmental beauty and about opposing oppression, and who deploys metaphysical, lyrical and colloquial language, slang and standard diction, all with equal strength and ease."
● Cosmo Pieterse, Culture In Another South Africa
"you almost catch your breath at some of the stanzas - you can re-read it several times and be struck by new ideas, metaphors, elegiac surprises, and the heartfelt poignancy"
● Aggrey Klaaste, editor Sowetan
"Farouk Asvat's award-winning collection of poems crackles with a passionate consuming pace"
● Z B Molefe, arts editor City Press
"Out of an angry silence, a polished poet is born."
● Anton Harber, editor Weekly Mail
"Here is the poetry which in its very contradictions explores accurately the emotional terrain and tensions of life in the townships today."
● Kelwyn Sole, University Of Cape Town, Staffrider
" ''A Celebration of Flames'' is so near to the bone, so full of despair and sanity. There is such gentleness and sadness in the love poetry ..."
● Debbie Arends, University Of Witwatersrand
♦ Books by Farouk Asvat:
● Sadness In The House Of Love (novel)
● The Gathering Of The Storm (novel)
● I Dream In Long Sentences (poetry)
● The Wind Still Sings Sad Songs (poetry)
● A Celebration Of Flames (poetry): winner of the vita award
● The Time Of Our Lives (poetry)
● This Masquerade (short stories)
● Bra Frooks (poetry)
● The Paanies Are Coming (short stories)
● In The House Of Love (novel)
● Weapons Of Words (literary criticism)
♦ FAROUK ASVAT is a novelist, poet, translator & medical doctor, banned by the South African #apartheid regime.
♦ Farouk Asvat was
● awarded the VITA Award for his anthology, "A Celebration Of Flames".
● nominated an Amnesty International "Prisoner of Conscience";
● awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley;
● the EOC Scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands;
● the University of Cape Town Health Care Trust Scholarship;
●
About the Author :
FAROUK ASVAT was banned by the South African regime between 1973 and 1978; and nominated an Amnesty International "Prisoner of Conscience" during this period. From 1971 to 1995 he received numerous death threats from both the right and left of the political spectrum for his views and writings. He won the Vita Literary Award for southern Africa for his anthology, A Celebration of Flames. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley, for creative writing and post graduate work in English literature; and the EOC Scholarship to the Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. He was awarded the Kwanzaa Honors Certificate by the Africa Network in the United States for his contribution to Horses: Athlone. His poem, "Possibilities for a Man Hunted by SBs" was selected to represent South Africa in the International Portland Review. Farouk Asvat's writings have been published in: UNITED STATES: International Portland Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Gar, Saasm News, Screens And Tasted Parallels; Processed World; Illuminations; Culture In Another South Africa; African Literature In The Eighties; WherePoetry24; Requiem magazine & poetry! on Goodreads. CANADA: Descant. BRAZIL: Cadernos Do Terceiro Mundo. TURKEY: Contemporary South African Poetry Anthology. SWITZERLAND: Geneve-Afrique. NETHERLANDS: Vrije Azania, O Nag, Kom Gou, Bly Weg!; Zuid; and the poems from his anthology A Celebration of Flames, translated into Dutch as Een Feest Van Vlammen, are published on the blogspot: faroukasvat - poems. FRANCE: Notre Libraire; Europe: Afrique de Sud. GERMANY: Matatu; Awa-Finnaba; Englisch Amerikanische Studien; Dokumente Texte Und Tendenzen: South African Literature; Crisis and Conflict: essays on southern African literature; Sudafrika-Stipendienfonds; Perspectives 5: South Africa; South Africa: the privileged and the dispossessed. ENGLAND: Index on Censorship, The Race Today Review, Wasafiri & SOUTH AFRICA. His poems have been translated into French, Dutch, Portuguese and Turkish. He has presented papers at the National English Literary Museum; the XIth Conference on Commonwealth Literature in Aachen and Liege, the 7th Third World and Radical Black Book Fair in London, the 2nd Bad Boll Conference on South African Literature in Germany, and at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been interviewed by BBC Book World, BBC Arts and Africa, BBC Topical Tapes, BBC London Calling; Deutsche Welle; Azania Vrije.
