GeorgeNicolasEl-Hage.com
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  • Professional Profile
    • Who is George Nicolas El-Hage
  • Publications
    • "Aqlam Muhajirah" The voice of the New Pen League (NPL)
    • Literary Criticism >
      • Books (English) >
        • A Labor of Love: Our Lebanon Family Home Renovation Project
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
        • Eliya Abu Madi: The Distinguished Poet of al-Rabita al-Qalamiya
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume One: Pre-Islamic to the Abbaasid Age
        • A Brief History of Arabic Literature: Volume Two: Andalusia to the Modern Age
        • William Blake and Kahlil Gibran: Poets of Prophetic Vision
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran: The Man Versus the Legend
        • Essays on Literature and Language
        • Ibn al-Farid's "Khamriyya" ("Ode on Wine")
        • Nizar Qabbani: Women in My Poetry and in My Life
        • Nizar Qabbani: My Story with Poetry - "An Autobiography"
        • Nizar Qabbani: Journal of An Indifferent Woman
        • Ghada al-Samman's Beirut '75: An Autobiographical Interpretation
        • English Translation of Selected Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
        • Khalil Hawi: Letters of Love and Life
        • Immortal Quotes from Ameen al-Rihani’s Masterpiece The Book of Khalid
        • Ameen al-Rihani: Eastern and Western Figures
        • Ameen al-Rihani’s The Register of Repentance: Four Short Stories and a Play
        • Selected Letters of Ameen al-Rihani: Translated with an Introduction and Notes
        • Ameen al-Rihani: You...The Poets
        • Ameen al-Rihani: My Story with May
        • Ameen al-Rihani: The Muleteer and the Priest
      • Books (Arabic) >
        • al-Zajal al-Lubnani wa Zaghloul al-Damour fi Beit Meri: (Lebanese Zajal and Zaghloul al-Damour in Beit Meri)
        • Madkhal ila-l-'alam al-shi 'ri 'inda Khalil Hawi usluban wa madmunan: (An Introduction to the Poetic Universe of Khalil Hawi)
        • al-Nabi bayna 'adu al-Masih wa al-Insan al-Ilah
        • Sahifat "al-Risala" al-Lubnaniya al-Mahjariya: (The "al-Risala" Newspaper and the Lebanese Press in Diaspora)
        • Gibran Kahlil Gibran wa William Blake: Sha'ira al-Ru'ya: (Gibran Kahlil Gibran and William Blake: Poets of Prophetic Vision)
        • The Trilogy of Heroism, Redemption, and Triumph: The Press in Diaspora, Khalil Hawi, Zaghloul al-Damour
    • Textbooks & Articles on Teaching & Learning Arabic >
      • marHaba III: A Course in Levantine & Modern Standard Arabic (LMSA) >
        • marHaba III: PART ONE Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART TWO Audio Files
        • marHaba III: PART FOUR Audio Files
      • marHaba II: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect - Intermediate Level >
        • A Companion Book to marHaba II: English Translation & Transliteration of All Lessons in marHaba II
      • marHaba: A Course in Levantine Arabic - Lebanese Dialect >
        • marHaba: Practice Workbooks
      • MABROUK: A Course in Modern Standard Arabic (Elementary & Intermediate Levels) >
        • Study Guide: MABROUK
      • The Story of Sami and Warda
    • Lebanese Nursery Rhymes
    • Books (Poetry in English/Arabic) >
      • Love Surpassed: A Book of Poetry
      • Letters to My Son: An Immigrant's Saga
      • Lebanese Hymns of Love and War
    • Books (Poetry in Arabic) >
      • Love Poems from Beirut
      • Awdat al-Faris wa Qiyamat al-Madina
      • al-Ghurba wa Mawasim al-Dhalam
      • Law Kunti Li
      • Qasa’id Bila Tarikh (Undated Poems) >
        • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Maw’id wa-liqa’
      • anti wal atfaalu fi Beirut: You and the Children in Beirut
      • You and the Children in Beirut
    • Poems (English) >
      • To Mary Ann with Love: A Book of Poetry
      • Birth of a Princess
      • Forty Years of Bliss
      • Thinking of You
      • You are My Christmas
      • A Poem for Mother's Day
      • To Mary Ann on Her Birthday
    • Poems (Arabic) >
      • Arabic Poems in MSA >
        • Beirut Speaks - song
        • A Tribute to Beirut
        • Lubnaniyat
        • The Garden of Visions
        • Najwa
        • Kunna ibtada’na
      • Arabic Poems in Lebanese Dialect >
        • Hilwit libnan
    • My Poetry (Translated from Arabic to English) >
      • Beirut Speaks
      • The Book of Death, #28
      • Journey of Illusion
      • Letter to a Country With No Frontier
      • A Letter to the Children of Qana
      • My People
      • You, Beirut and the Children
      • Introduction to If You Were Mine
      • Sufiya: A Mystical Poem
      • Surprise Attack
      • Exile
      • Chariot of Light
    • My Translations of Other Poets'/Writers' Works >
      • May Ziyadeh: The Return of the Wave
      • Said Akl: When Lebanon Speaks
      • Ameen Albert Rihani: A Train and No Station
      • Mikhail Naimy: Once Upon A Time
      • Mikhail Naimy: Abu Batta and Other Stories
      • Mikhail Naimy: Fathers and Sons - A Play in Four Acts
      • Mikhail Naimy: Inspired by Christ
      • Mikhail Naimy: Sab‘un (Seventy) An Autobiography
      • Mikhail Naimy: al-Ghirbal (The Sieve): Selections Translated into English with an Introduction
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: A Loaf of Bread (al-Raghif)
      • Tawfiq Yusuf Awwad: The Lame Boy and Other Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: Faces and Stories
      • Maroun Abboud: The Red Prince - A Lebanese Tale
      • Maroun Abboud: Tales from the Village
      • al-Rihaniyyat
      • Munajayat Al-Sab‘in
      • Mahmud Darwish’s poem, “Antithesis”
      • ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati’s: The Byzantine Poems of Abu Firas
      • Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious Bashir
    • Personal Reflections >
      • First Impressions of Lebanon in June 2013
      • The Collapse of a Tradition
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Introduction to Letters to My Son

Forward
These four letters, selected out of ten, are in fact a personal account of my feelings as a father, an immigrant, and a poet, towards my son. They are an emotional register of the dilemma of alienation, exile and loneliness that faces every immigrant, Lebanese or not, who, for various circumstances, leaves his or her country and emigrates abroad. I happen to be a Lebanese man who traveled to America during the Lebanese war to continue my education and make a future for me, my parents and my siblings. Like many cultures, being the eldest son in a Lebanese family carries a huge responsibility that falls on your shoulders and becomes your cause.

America, as it was known, was “the land of endless opportunities, the generous and welcoming land, where money grows on trees,” and “attaining the American Dream was only a measure of your determination, perseverance and hard work.” Indeed, this is the land where endless possibilities abound and the reality of forging a better life has, and still does, lure people from around the world. In fact, may God bless America.

It was not an easy task to write these letters to my son and to put my innermost feelings out there in the open. But as a poet, it is my mission to share because poetry is the art of the unusual encounter with the inevitable and the holy, and the poet’s mission is to always take the road rarely traveled and to return and inform fellow beings.

The complexity of emotions displayed in these letters is further heightened as the text becomes a living document and evolves into a persona by itself and onto itself. The words, charged with meaning and burdened with symbolism, oscillate between two languages that individually struggle to claim the message, each for itself, and to embody the meaning, which although universal, is yet very personal. In many instances, the meaning is loaded with implications particular to its own culture and telling of its peculiarities and symbols, for language is an expression of culture. The text assumes a higher intensity and urgency when the private is projected onto a national and patriotic level and when the intended symbol is yet elevated to transcend the limitations of expressing the anguish, not only of the individual, but of the many, and becomes imbued with the mythical, the historical and the sacred.

Language is an amazing tool, and words are the body that crystallizes the ethereality of emotion in its material form through ink and paper. Although words attempt to move in a parallel and fluid motion, carrying meanings across languages, nevertheless, words remain locked into their own culture by virtue of their symbols. For this reason, translation of poetry between two different languages, from the mother tongue to a foreign tongue, and with two diverse alphabets, poses at times insurmountable challenges.

A perfect example is the name “Nicolas” in English versus “نقولا” in Arabic. When each letter of the name in Arabic is used as a symbol, the two languages collide, and each retains its individual identity associated with its own culture and symbolism. For the readers familiar with Arabic, the passage below illustrates the difficulty in translating the name. Since the sentences intimately relate to each letter in Arabic in the spelling of the name, “Nicolas,” the text is impossible to translate into English and still retain its original meaning. In Arabic, every letter becomes a symbol that recalls a word or a source that begins with the same letter from the historical, the mythical and the sacred. In English, there is no such equivalent.

“N I C O L A S” - “ن ق و ل ا” ”

نونك من نور الله, من نجمة الصبح, ونسمة الحقل ونغمة الغسق. قافك من قربان الآلهة, من قرآن محمد وقوافل العائدين. واوك من ومضة سيف إيليا, وعلي والاسكندر وطارق وفخر الدين. لامك من لبنان سنا ً, من لهفتي ولهيب شوقي وليلة القدر. ألفك من إنجيل المسيح وانشودة الأناشيد واساطير الغابرين.

When I wrote the first letter published here, my son was three years old. Hence, the feelings, emotions and thoughts are, in fact, a portrayal of my own struggle, frustration and fight. He had nothing to do with my strife and definitely did not experience any of this suffering and loneliness. This is my acknowledgement that I have projected my own fears on him while he remains innocent of this burden. This was my epic to survive, my cross to carry and my battle to endure. These letters are a private record, a personal portrayal of my inner struggle. I put it out there in hopes that it may mirror the experience of many other immigrants and highlight their attachment to their first born in a foreign country with the feeling of joy mixed with guilt of trying to raise a child without the support of family while desperately trying to provide a connection with the customs, traditions and culture from which the immigrant descended.

I am aware of the highly sentimental emotions displayed in these letters, but these are honest and true feelings without any exaggeration. I can say that while writing these letters, they actually wrote themselves. I did not have to embellish, polish or change many of the original words that jumped from my heart to the paper. It is my hope that other Lebanese, Arab and many foreign families read their own reflection in these letters.

February 2013
Monterey, CA


[From my book: The Return of the Hero and the Resurrection of the City, originally written in Arabic and translated by George N. El-Hage and edited by MaryAnn Del Vecchio, Ph.D.]
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