About this item
Granada is one of the iconic cities of the world. It stands for the culture of Al-Andalus, composed of Moslems, Jews, and Christians, who lived together in the legendary convivencia of the Spanish Middle Ages. Al-Andalus gave rise to an intellectual vanguard whose achievements can be compared only with those of classical Athens, Ming China, or Renaissance Italy. Granada resident Steven Nightingale excavates the rich past of his adopted city and of Al-Andalus, finding a story of utopian ecstasy, political intrigue, religious exaltation, and scorching anguish. Granada witnessed a flourishing of poetry, and constructed the Alhambra, one of the most celebrated buildings in Europe. Al-Andalus brought to Europe the first modern translations of Greek philosophy, advanced mathematics, science, medicine and music, as well as transcendent mystical texts.
About the Author
Steven Nightingale is an author of books of poetry, novels, and essays. He divides his time between the San Francisco Bay Area; Reno, Nevada; and Granada, Spain. Personal and Family LifeNightingale was born in Reno, Nevada, and attended public schools there before being admitted to Stanford University, where he studied literature, religion, and computer science. He has lived near London, in Paris, and in Granada, Spain, and traveled worldwide, often to wild country. He moved to Granada in 2001, after buying, with his wife Lucy Blake, a carmen in the ancient barrio of the Albayzin. He and Lucy have one daughter, Gabriella. WritingNightingale is the author of two novels, six books of sonnets, and a travel and history book about Granada. His work is widely anthologized, and he has taught poetry by invitation in over fifty schools and universities in Nevada and California. His first poetry was published in 1983, by the magazine Coevolution Quarterly, and his first novel, The Lost Coast, and its sequel, The Thirteenth Daughter of the Moon, were published by St. Martin's Press in New York, in 1995 and 1996. Following those books, he began to assemble into manuscripts his sonnets, a poetic form with an eight-hundred year history. Nightingale specialized in the sonnet, believing that its history and durability give the form a straightforward and uncanny power. His six books of poetry begin with the limited edition Cartwheels, followed by the trade edition Planetary Tambourine, and four more collections of ninety-nine sonnets each, all published by the Black Rock Press, in their Rainshadow Editions. In 2015, Counterpoint Press in Berkeley, California brought out Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God. The book describes the move of the author and his family to Granada, and goes on to address the history of gardens and of the Albayzin, the extraordinary history of Al-Andalus, the sacred geometry in Islamic tile work, the work of the Sufis, the history of flamenco, and the life and poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca.
