Songs from Two Continents

Songs from Two Continents is a paean on ‘dualities’. Here, Europe and Asia entwine, life and death stalk each other, nationalities fuse and Good and Evil wrestle relentlessly to give meaning to existence.

Like such pathfinders as Nazım Hikmet and Orhan Veli before him, Moris Farhi adheres to the ethos of Turkish folk poetry – that poetry should be the pure distillation of emotions. From carnal desire to tender love, from rapture to sorrow and from mysticism to mundanity, he endeavours to expose, in the raw, the essence of our sensibilities.

Imbued with the Levantine spirit, Moris Farhi enquires into such themes with his irrepressible sensual verve and passionate intelligence – whether in maturity or in the rambunctious years of youth.

Born in Turkey in 1935, Moris Farhi is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Vice-President of International Pen. He was appointed an MBE in 2001 for ‘services to literature’. His novels include Children of the Rainbow, Journey through the Wilderness (both Saqi Books), Young Turk and A Designated Man (both Telegram). He lives in Brighton.