Andree Chedid

Andrée Chedid is a poet and novelist, born in 1920 in Cairo from Lebanese parents. When she was ten, she was sent to a boarding house, where she learned English and French. At fourteen, she left for Europe. She then returned to Cairo to go to an American university. Her dream was to become a dancer. She got married to a physician when she was twenty-two, with whom she has two children: Louis and Michèle. Her work questions human condition and what links the individual to the world. Her writing seeks to evoke the Orient, but she focuses more in denouncing the civil war that destroys Lebanon. She lives in France since 1946. Because of this diverse background, her work is truly multicultural. French is her native language and her choice for her writings. However, her first book was written in English: On the Trails of my Fancy. She has commented about her work that it is an eternal quest for humanity.


The Final Poem

A forge burns in my heart.
I am redder than dawn,
Deeper than seaweed,
More distant than gulls,
More hollow than wells.
But I only give birth
To seeds and to shells.

My tongue becomes tangled in words:
I no longer speak white,
Nor utter black,
Nor whisper gray of a wind-worn cliff,
Barely do I glimpse a swallow,
A shadow's brief glimmer,
Or guess at an iris.

Where are the words,
The undying fire,
The final poem?
The source of life?

by Andree Chedid


Biography from: Wikipedia.org