LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

the nation speaksin April 1974 an ‘orchard’ (bustan) which, the poet tells us, belonged to Palestinianrefugees who fled their country in 1948.36. Although this collection bears a date of publication prior to that of li-l-Sala wa-lthawra(1978), the later collection is in fact older; its publication was actually heldback because of the Civil War in Lebanon, where it was printed.37. For more information on these inter-textual references, see Suleiman (1995: 109–10).38. For the theories of reflection in national literature, see Corse (1997).39. In one such example, a 331-page collection of forty poems under the title Diwan almiladal-shiÆri (‘The Christmas of Poetry’, 1987), Saddam Hussein is described,among other things, as ‘a moon in the sky’, a ‘star in the sky’, ‘muse of the poets’, ‘themaker of joy’, and ‘descendent of the Prophet’ (hashimi al-Æiraq). The last poem isentitled ‘A Christmas ode’ (muÆallaqat al-milad), in which the term muÆallaqa (ode)recalls the pre-Islamic poetry compositions.— 231 —www.taq.ir