Interview With Isabel NUNES, Literary Critic from Barcelona Spain May 11, 2007

Interview With Isabel NUNES, Literary Critic from Barcelona Spain May 11, 2007

Isabel Nunes, a literary critic
Bacelona -Spain

Fahredin Shehu es un joven poeta que trabaja en RadioKosova y ha recogido el legado sufí en sus poemas. Sueña con organizar unencuentro sufí en Sevilla o Granada. Leo sus poemas traducidos al inglés, de una sensualidad oriental. En la guerra, en el sudeste de Kosovo, sufrió el ataque de granadas del ejército yugoslavo, tuvo que abandonar su casa y perdió una biblioteca familiar de 2.000 títulos, con manuscritos caligráficos de 250 años de antigüedad, como el Canon de Avicenna. Durante tres meses vivieron en sótanos y, para no enloquecer, leía a Meher Baba y a Osho Rajneesh.
Eso le cambió. “La religión es para los que temen el infierno y anhelan el paraíso, la espiritualidad es para quienes ya han estado allí.”

Përkthim:

Fahredin Shehu eshte nje poet i ri qe punon ne radio Kosova dhe ka mbledhur material sufi ne poemat e tij. Enderron te organizoje nje takim sufi ne Sevilla ose Granada. Lexoj poemat (poezite) e tij te perkthyera ne anglisht, te nje sensualiteti oriental. Gjate luftes ne juglindje te Kosoves ka vuajtur sulme te granatave nga ushtria jugosllave, I ishte dashur ta braktise shtepine e tij dhe ka humbur nje biblioteke familiare me 2000 tituj dhe doreshkrime kaligrafike 250vjet te vjetra si Kanuni I Avicenes. Gjate tre muajve jetonte nëpër podrume dhe per te mos u cmendur lexonte Meher Baba dhe Osho Rajneesh.• Please, tell me a little about your writing and about how you decided you
wanted to pick up this Eastern Islam legacy, how you discovered the sufi
world, etc.

I started writing in 1990 diligently working on my first book of poems titled NUN published in 1996, working on it 6 years, which was the first contemporary Albanian book on mystical lyrics and the beginning of era of transcendental literature in Albanian language and literature. The symbolism of NUN is derived from Arabic Jaffr numerical system of letters value akin to Jewish Cabbala symbolism and the book possesses 50 poems which corresponds with the numerical value of Arabic letter NUN which is the symbol of wisdom and knowledge and the first verse of Suretu Qalem in Qur’an which means feather or the writing tool. As my creativity started to be published in a form of writing deliberately I decided to have this symbolism to begin my writing with NUN.

On my second book The Invisible Plurality, published in 2000 I worked 4 years and it’s poetical prose with no character, no time and no place and the narration is in the form of visual slides with the rapid movements. For the first time Albanian reader had chance to understand about Judaism through Moshe Maimonides and his antipode Shabatai Zevi. This book is developing in Tetra- logy where the second one will be on Christianity, the third one on Islam and the fourth volume will be on Mystical legacy of three Abrahamic Religion and all this from the artistic point of view not a theologian discourse.

My third book is the novel NECTARINE published in 2004, is a transcendental epic and search of the spiritual quest through lost scriptures. The first edition is completely sold and was the most sold book in after war Kosova.

My fourth book is Elemental 99, is the book of 99 short stories with the symbolism of Theurgic art on creation of elemental.

I was born as European Muslim inheriting the SUFI tradition from my family and its’ natural spiritual development in this realm. As for my education and refine I expand my capacities reading form the world legacy of religious, spiritual and transcendental treasures and finding the beauty in the mankind through all this palette of diversity of the same reality.

My aim through my writing is to present the world as one giving the spiritual love to the entire mankind and promote human values and sublime it into the higher levels of understanding not for the individual but for the collectivity trying to pursue the reader to understand other cultures and while understanding others you diminish the stereotypes, misunderstandings or even conflicts.

My aim is also to preserve the tradition of Sufism using modern language in prose and Albanian Gheg Dialect which is the most suitable for Sufi poetry.

• What were you doing during the war? How do you think it affected you,
your perception, your writing…

During the war in Kosova, I was in my hometown in South East of Kosova struggling for my biological existence. Twice attacked by grenade from Yugoslav army not from Serbian paramilitary forces, so the family was constrained to leave the house where I left my home library of more than 2000 titles from all around the world 250 years old calligraphic manuscripts like the Cannon from Avicenna and many more and my paintings.

While living in cellars for three months for the first time I wanted to become an animal as I was observing the cats playing erotic games where no human was able to walk free, and the birds singing sad songs. In that time to avoid madness I was reading The Discourses from Meher Baba, and The Ultimate Alchemy by Osho Rajneesh.

The war in fact helped me to purify and love more, to spark my beauty of the soul just as gold should go through the flame to be refined. I feel now that I can write even better not on the war but on the existential and ontological matters. Just as in old Jewish saying as much you squeeze the olive that much oil you can get from it. Now I feel that the religion is for those who are afraid of hell and hope for paradise, but the spirituality is for those who have already been there.

The quality of writing is of course different followed by experiences that is difficult to describe, in fact it was always my aim to write as we are silent, as we are alone and do things in solitude and not in the front of humans.

• Your favorite poets, your masters (you pronounced some of them, even from
Spanish-Arabic tradition… And modern too

If you allow me to paraphrase the Upanisadas … who knows how many flowers the bee has visited to produce the lump of honey…in fact these masters influenced me a lot and nobody can avoid the influences but the matter is how do craft your art and give your signature. We all know that the thread is produced but the way how we arrange them in the loom and fill with different colors to have a beautiful canvas it all remain on our capability to present that beauty that lies deep down in our inspiration and emerges from our souls.

Undoubtedly my most favorite poet is RUMI, and other great Persian poets, then William Blake, Milton, Yeats, Goethe, Kahlil Gibran, other thinkers like Ibn Arabi, Rabia Al Adawia, Moshe Maimonides, Judah Ha Levi, Miguel de Unamuno, Balthasar Gracian Morales, Emanuel Swedenborg, Osho Rajneesh, Gurdijeff, Ramakrishna, Madame Blawatsky.

As for the Spain the people of art here know only about Picasso, Dali, Cervantes, Almodovar but there is a Spain of Juan De la Cruse, Moshe ibn Gabriol, Ibn Rushd ( Averroës), Ibn Hazm, Ibn Tufail, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, as well as Spain of Diego Velasquez, Francisco Goya, Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Joan Miro etc.