Harq al-Harba: Dramatist Laureate

Harq al-Harba, born Aitu Cinoli, was a significant and enigmatic playwright of the Atreidean period, honoured in his own age as Dramatist Laureate. Rising from a former salesman of filmbooks to the foremost dramatist of his day, he spent the greater part of his life at the Imperial capital on Arrakis under the patronage of Ghanima Atreides and Farad'n Corrino, and for centuries his plays remained the best known account of his turbulent era.

Early life#

Harq al-Harba was born in the town of Nelopus on Yorba in 10246 AG, the son of a well to do tailor and a music teacher. Nothing certain is known of his childhood or education, but by tradition he left home at the age of twenty to work for the Gwent-Orlov publishing house. For the next ten years he travelled the planetary circuit of his territory as a salesman of minimic filmbooks imprinted on shigawire, carrying the latest publications from world to world, negotiating reprint rights, and buying up local works to copy onto his compact wire before moving on. It was a trade that demanded independent judgment and risk capital, for no sale was ever assured and the shigawire was both fragile and extremely costly. Because the account books of Gwent-Orlov listed their personnel only by employee identification numbers, they shed no light on this part of his life.

At Arrakeen#

He severed his attachment to Gwent-Orlov, and in 10276 AG he made for the Imperial capital on Arrakis, where he spent the next thirty-seven years. In 10278 AG he was discovered by Ghanima Atreides and Farad'n Corrino, who remained his patrons for thirty years. His first play, The Sandrider, met with acclaim at Arrakeen in 10280 AG, and over the following decades he produced a steady body of work. He married Vela Cinoli in 10286 AG, with whom he had four children, and he purchased a half interest in an Arrakeen restaurant in 10295 AG.

Though he enjoyed the help and company of the royal family, he felt somewhat out of place at court, and refused the suite of rooms Ghanima offered him. He did permit her to attend his rehearsals, and occasionally allowed the royal children to take walk-on parts in his plays, much to their delight. Tradition holds that Ghanima once persuaded him to write a masque which the family produced privately for the court, with Leto Atreides II appearing fittingly as the voice of God, though the text was not preserved and Harban scholars have argued the tale to be apocryphal. In 10313 AG he left Arrakeen and the writing of plays altogether, retiring to an isolated home on Fides, where he died in 10317 AG.

Character and the authorship dispute#

By tradition Harq al-Harba could work only in absolute solitude, seldom leaving his room and almost never his house, and it was suggested that the many space journeys of his earlier life had left him afflicted with agoraphobia that drove him to writing, though the theory had no independent support. Since his death his reputation grew until he was recognized as the absolute master of his time, counted among the first rank of the playwrights of an age noted for the richness of its dramatic accomplishments.

More than three hundred years after his death, in 10630 AG, his authorship and even his historical existence came under challenge. The skeptics doubted that a former salesman could have written the plays credited to him, and pointed to how little record of so famed a man survived. The dispute began with a minor noble of House Rembo and was carried further by scholars who variously named Farad'n Corrino, Count Hasimir Fenring, and the God Emperor Leto Atreides II as the true author, the last theory proving the most enduring. Critics answered that the question existed only in the minds of those clouded by snobbery and ignorance of Atreidean literary history, noting that more documentary evidence survived for al-Harba than for many of his contemporaries, and the discovery of the Rakis Hoard did nothing to overturn the conclusion that the plays were his own.

Works#

Twenty-one plays are generally accepted as his authentic works, all but two of them collected in the famous Works volume edited by his wife Vela Cinoli and published on Fides in 10320 AG. He won more public acclaim for his history plays than for any other genre, but he was equally skilled in tragedy and comedy. Among his works were The Sandrider, the two-part History of Duke Leto, Shaddam IV, the historical tragedy Hasimir, the tragedies Carthage, Water for the Dead, and Stilgar's Dream, and the historical tragedy Chani. Most were first performed in the Fremen language, in which he was fluent, though his native tongue was the Yorban dialect of Galach. Before the discovery of the Rakis Hoard his plays were the best known account of the turbulent era from 10150 AG to 10219 AG.