Land and Mind

Book excerpt: This book is both a study of the work of the Scottish writer, Kenneth White, in thought, travel writing and poetry, and an application of one of White’s main concepts, geopoetics, to Charles Doughty’ Arabia Deserta. It is a largely forgotten fact that Doughty considered all his travels to be leading up to an ars poetica. Omar Bsaïthi’s thesis is that Arabia Deserta is a superb example of geopoetics in action The result of the meeting of White and Doughty orchestrated by Bsaïthi is not only the reinterpretation of an English classic and perhaps a renewal of Arab studies, it is an introduction, via the writings of Kenneth White, to a regrounded field of culture. “In his presentation of geopoetics and intellectual nomadism, Bsaithi draws attention both to the nature of discontent felt in the Western culture and civilization in the postmodern era, and to the possible forms of encounter between figures highly representative of the Western mind, searching for the “ways out”, and other cultural spaces.” —Khalid Hajji, Professor at Mohamed 1rst University, Oujda, Morocoo “It is the merit of Mr Omar Bsaithi’s book to focus on a Franco-Scottish poet to establish an unprecedented correlation with Charles Doughty, author of Travels in Arabia Deserta. By so doing, he applies a method which belongs to Kenneth White’s own geopoetic practice: in a different and a priori foreign cultural context, he reveals similitudes and links through the study of a deeper and more poetic relation to terrestrial space.” —Laurent Margantin, Université de La Réunion