English PEN World Atlas

Bahaa Taher in London

2009-09-09T14:05:00.002+01:00

The National has a profile marking the author's tour marking the English publication of Sunset Oasis, his Arabic Booker-winning novel.

Meanwhile, the Complete Review salutes another leading Arabic writer, Zakaria Tamer, with two reviews.

I Saw Ramallah: Metro's Book of the Month

2009-09-03T11:06:00.004+01:00

It may be a London freesheet but Metro has a high-powered book club going on. Mourid Barghouti's memoir I Saw Ramallah (translated by Ahdaf Soueif) follows The Line of Beauty (August) and The White People (July) in what could potentially be the largest virtual book club out there. So if you're commuting in London, look out for Tube neighbours reading a book with this cover:
and say hi to book club members in person, or leave reviews and comments on the site for other readers to share.

PEN Atlas on Booktrust

2009-08-27T15:43:00.004+01:00

PEN Atlas is featured on Booktrust's Translated Fiction site, a lively and exciting resource whether you're a reader or translator, with reviews, articles (including an inside look at the BCLT Translation Summer School), a blog, and news of UK prizes and initiatives for fiction in translation.

2009 Naguib Mahfouz Award announced

2009-08-26T17:48:00.003+01:00

The View from Fez has the scoop as a Moroccan writer, Bensalem Himmich, professor of philosophy at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. He is the auhtor of over 26 books in both Arabic and French.

He has previously won the critics' prize (1990) for his novel "Le fou du pouvoir," a book elected by the Arab Union of Writers as one of the hundred best books of the 20th century. He also won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his book Al-'Allamah (2001), "The Polymath," a book about the great Arab writer Ibn Khaldoun.

I can't find the title of the winning book anywhere, including the page at American University of Cairo, who publish the English translations of the winning books -- they're still on 2007.

Read: Translation in Practice

2009-08-25T20:09:00.004+01:00

Thanks to Words Without Borders for flagging up this new book from Dalkey Archive Press. Based on a British Council symposium, translator Gill Paul gathered contributions from leading translators, including PEN members Ros Schwartz and Amanda Hopkinson, to present the most coherent and comprehensive guide to the pragmatics of translation.

Listen: Fady Joudah Reads Mahmoud Darwish

2009-08-24T14:21:00.003+01:00

Courtesy of the Center for the Art of Translation: five poems recorded at the Center's Lit & Lunch series.

2009 IWP Participants announced

2009-08-24T13:00:00.004+01:00

Iraqi poet Soheil Najm and Saudi Arabian short-story writer Hanaa Hijazi will be taking part in a reading at 5 p.m. Sept. 4 in the Shambaugh House, the IWP headquarters at 30 N. Clinton St. on the University of Iowa campus. They're two of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program 2009 participants, alongside novelist, poet, scriptwriter, and translator Yasser Abdellatif from Egypt; French (of Algerian heritage) novelist and essayist Mabrouck Rachedi; and Jordanian filmmaker Yahya Alabdallah.

Literary Saloon on the Farouk Hosni debate

2009-08-24T12:55:00.003+01:00

The Literary Saloon does a great job taking to task Mahfouz translator Robert Stock over his piece on Egyptian Culture Minister and would-be head of UNESCO Farouk Hosni.

Instead of introducing examples of this [anti-Zionist] intelligentsia, Stock is happy to instead toss out generalizations such as:
This whole imbroglio only serves to highlight the Egyptian literati's generally hateful and hidebound views of Israel, which are often more virulent than those of the Egyptian public at large.

Examples ?
One example, please ?
I don't doubt that examples galore could be dug up (after all, examples of every opinion under the sun are readily found) -- but, hey, how about digging up at least one to appease me? (And surely it's telling that he doesn't: is there any name he could come up with that any of us would recognize -- Gamal al-Ghitani? Sonallah Ibrahim? [the writers I'd consider among the cream of Egyptian literati and intelligentsia] even Alaa al-Aswany ? Somehow I suspect these guys haven't been spouting "hateful and hidebound views" -- so who has? By which I mean: who has who can in any way be taken seriously, as al-Ghitani and Ibrahim and even al-Aswany can.)

PEN Atlas on the Radio: Soumaya Souse on XCP

2009-08-18T15:03:00.001+01:00

Listen here [streaming MP3] as Soumaya Souse discusses poetry and Palestine with Leonard Schwartz.

Publishers' Weekly Starred Review for New Darwish

2009-08-18T14:54:00.003+01:00

If I Were Another Mahmoud Darwish, trans. from the Arabic by Fady Joudah. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26 (240p) ISBN 978-0-374-17429-3

This second volume by the late, great Palestinian poet Darwish (1941–2008) to be translated by Palestinian-American doctor/poet Joudah comprises four nonconsecutive books of longer poems spanning 1990 to 2005. These works follow Darwish's poetic development from a historically focused middle period to the devastatingly personal lyric-epic of his late style. Formally varied—Rubaiyats alternate with sprawling free-form poems, in which prose paragraphs meet both long and short verse lines—Darwish's Sufi-inspired poetry probes, admires, describes, longs for and questions. His subjects are often broad: the inheritance and disinheritance of lands, languages and histories. Sometimes, though, he turns to concrete need, confessing, for example, in “Mural,” his book-length poem about a brush with death: “I want to walk to the bathroom/ on my own.” But Darwish's poems are at their most singular and powerful when he collapses the boundaries between great and small concerns, as when he articulates, “Wars teach us to love detail: the shape of our door keys,/ how to comb our wheat with eyelashes and walk lightly on our land.” The stakes of this work—for Darwish and for his readers—are clear: “O my language,/ help me to adapt and embrace the universe.” (Nov.)

PW Reviews 17 Aug 2009

Napoleon, Wittgenstein and the Egyptian Novel

2009-08-17T19:56:00.003+01:00

Thanks to the Complete Review for this dazzler: Youssef Rakha channels the spirit of Wittgenstein for Tractato Franco-Arabicus, a playful and informative Al-Ahram review of Sonallah Ibrahim's recent novels about Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, Amrikanli (Dar Al-Mustaqbal, 2003) and its sequel Al-Qaanoun Al-Faransi (The French Law, Dar Al-Mustaqbal, 2009). In a fit of Wittgensteinian melancholy, Rakha concludes that whereof the postcolonial novel cannot speak, thereof it must remain silent:

3.5. The Turban and the Hat ends with the image of Dr Shukri waking up at 5 am to prepare for his return to the homeland -- only to find that copy of the conference programme on which he had written his address for Celine to have on the floor outside the door to his room.

3.5.1. "I picked it up to find a line in pencil beneath my address... 'My response is precisely that you are a naive, backward human being.' I put the programme in my handbag and proceeded to the lift with heavy steps."

***

4. An Arab novel about the Egyptian Campaign cannot go beyond that image.

Amjad Nasser: Now Available in English

2009-08-10T13:54:00.003+01:00

Susannah Tarbush reviews Jordanian poet Amjad Nasser's Shepherd of Solitude, the first collection of his work to appear in English. It's translated by poet Khaled Mattawa and published by Banipal Books. Tarbush argues that the volume gives English readers an insight into a major Arabic poet, his poetry marked by a fierce wit and equally fierce elegiac manner, a poet of many flavours gathered by a sharp intelligence.

Khaled Mattawa sums this sense up beautifully in his introduction, pointing out that Nasser uses the word and image of the shepherd frequently, positioning himself, as poet,

like a shepherd watching over a flock of wayward, reckless versions of himself. He gives these selves free rein to act out their crises and victories, and they in turn reveal to him various shades of the glory and folly of human nature. Their flaws recounted and noted, he shepherds them home at the end of the day and closes the stable door behind him.

Hanan al-Shaykh & Carmen Calil in Conversation

2009-08-10T13:50:00.001+01:00

Sadly, not live -- although this "How We Met" article from the Independent on Sunday suggests what a great event that would be.

I Saw Ramallah reviewed in Daily Star

2009-08-09T14:52:00.000+01:00

A feisty and focused review by Shahzad Khan in The Daily Star, Bangladesh's only online newspaper (strapline: "Committed to the People's Right to Know"). Khan concludes her review, which is followed by a long excerpt, with the observation that it is through Mourid Barghouti's

rich mix of concrete detail and metaphorical flight that the book achieves its undoubtedly haunting effect. The tale is told with remarkable simplicity and in a tone that can be universally understood, yet its texture and details, in some case quite unfathomably, remains Arabic, and rooted specifically in the Palestinian earth. One doubts whether anything similar exists in the dishearteningly burgeoning literature of political exile, asylum, and flight.

Barghouti fans can follow news of his publications and events by friending him on Facebook.

August Issue of WWB: Andre Naffis on literary competition in the UAE

2009-08-08T15:00:00.000+01:00

Who can resist an article entitled Poets, Eunuchs and Pricks? A mordant commentary on the biggerbetterfastermore ethos of the Emirates, Andre Naffis' essay looks at the way in which literary prestige has got mixed up in the rapidly developing skyline, with a planned statue celebrating al-Hakawati (the storyteller).

In a characteristically outlandish twist, the Sheikhs have now decided to set their mores on sexuality down in stone by commissioning a gargantuan eunuch—which is to lord over Dubai’s Zabeel Park, fifty hectares smack in the middle of what is now some of the world’s most valuable real estate. At over one hundred and fifty feet, the statue of Al-Hakawati “the storyteller” would relegate Rhodes’ Colossus to an also-ran.

In Abu Dhabi on the other hand, it's all about live entertainment,

in what is arguably a ploy by Abu Dhabi’s reigning Nahyan clan to style themselves after the Medicis and establish their city as the artistic counterweight to Dubai’s financial hub. The audiovisual jewel in their tiara is “The Prince of Poets”—a contest held at the Al Raha Beach Theatre on the outskirts of the island emirate. Run along the lines of “American Idol,” thousands of applications are processed until a select thirty-five poets compete in the broadcasts which unfold over the course of ten weeks.

As for the Medicis, this patronage of art has inspired some heated exchanges in Arab literary community and blogosphere, and casts a revealing light on the sociocultural makeup of the Emirates.

Take the first season when there were claims that the judges, hoping to foster a sense of national pride, awarded first prize to the Emarati Maatouk, while the far more popular Palestinian Barghouti came in fifth. Barghouti, whose father, Mourid is the author of I Saw Ramallah, could no doubt take solace in the not inconsiderable cheque ($27,000) and in that he walked away with that much sought-after accolade, the modern poet’s wreath, which he was accorded when his poem “Jerusalem” was immortalized with a cell-phone ring-tone. Nevertheless, the mini-scandal drew attention to the deep seated divisions between local and foreign Arabs. Palestinians and other Arabs constitute a second tier to privileged Emaratis.

What does this all amount to for poetry? Naffis links the ambitious scale and political capital of both projects to

the deep-seated ambivalence the Arab world displays when the ‘word’ intermingles with Islam’s current conservatism. Poetry is often dubbed sihr halal, “legal magic,” which, aside from the peculiar phrasing—one that would be unthinkable in other contexts as the average Arab has an understanding of magic not too dissimilar from that of Salem’s witch-hunters circa1692—points to a marked difference between East and West.

Yet

Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani and Adonis, that perennial Nobel contender, were and have been known to fill stadiums with record audiences.

What Naffis doesn't add is that all three poets have also been thorns in the side of governments as well as popular figures. When state-sanctioned, can poetry continue to be the Arab world's rock and roll?

Raja Shehadeh on Mahmoud Darwish

2009-08-07T13:21:00.003+01:00

In the Guardian BooksBlog, one Palestinian writer pays tribute to another, who was also his neighbour in Ramallah. Not just a small literary world, but a moving tribute from a Palestinian writer whose reputation is growing fast to a national mentor figure and international ambassador for Palestinian literature.

A candlelit vigil in Ramallah following the death of Mahmoud Darwish. Photograph: EPA

Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing: Now In Business

2009-08-03T12:51:00.003+01:00

Susannah Tarbush was at the BQFP's inaugural event in London for a salon with Ahdaf Soueif, in discussion with Peter Florence of the Hay Festival, at St Barnabas House at 1 Greek Street in the heart of literary London. If you missed the event, don't worry -- the next one will take place on 9 September, in Doha. Bloomsbury’s founder and chief executive Nigel Newton announced "the first BQFP Ramadan Iftar, featuring readings by local poets in Arabic and English” in the BQFP villa at the Qatar Foundation. For news and events, check out the BQFP website, where Arab authors can also submit a book proposal for the foundation's children's publishing program: contact the foundation on bqfp [at][ bloomsbury.com. They have just published their first book -- The Selfish Crocodile by Faustin Charles and Michael Terry -- in both Arabic and English (read more in Tarbush's blog), and theya re looking for further titles which will be launched and distributed in Qatar on World Book Day.

Egypt: Belal Fadl's Essays reviewed by Baheyya

2009-08-03T12:31:00.005+01:00

A thoughtful review by Egyptian blogger Baheyya gives an intricate context for the new collection of essays by screenwriter and al-Destour editor (read more about those aspects of his career in this Egypt Today article) Belal Fadl. Baheyya describes his new collection as "irresistibly named" and she's right -- I'd definitely pick up a book called The Original Inhabitants of Egypt: Stories about the Genius of the Place, the Idiocy of the Rulers, and the Indifference of the People if it were ever to appear in translation. "Original Inhabitants," Baheyya explains, are

Egyptians who are neither rich nor middle class, but somewhere in the vast space beneath, what we alternately call lower-middle class, lower class, underclass, the marginalized, or the horrid “simple folk” (البسطاء).

But, as she goes on to elucidate, Fadl has made his career out of peddling stereotypes of these ordinary Egyptians in films and TV -- and he does so in many of the essays. As Baheyya avers, this seems a shame because -- from her account, at least -- the book appears to open up a view of Egypt's proletariat (to use a word coined by another great essayist), at once traditional and modernising, that translations of Alaa al-Aswany's novels have only begun to broach for non-Arabic readers.

Baheyya has thoughtful reviews of two other works of non-fiction that cast a light: Karima a-Hifnawy's Diary of a Pharmacist (review), a memoir by an outstanding activist who -- like her better-known contemporary Nawal al-Saadawi -- combines medicine, human rights and an assured literary tone, and novelist Galal Amin's What Has Life Taught Me (review). The blogger may claim that

Autobiography is my least favourite literary genre, too easily prone to posturing and self-exoneration, or else heavy woe-is-me tales about the author’s suffering at the hands of a cruel world. Life is already too full of braggarts and whiners to have to be subjected to them in books

but her reviews suggest that -- above and beyond the pitiful rate of fiction in translation (see ThreePercenter Chad Post's most recent round-up and sharp analysis of US stats at Publishing Perspectives -- we're missing out if memoirs, essays and autobiographies aren't crossing languages and cultures as well.

Banipal 35: New Writing in Arabic -- and Dutch!

2009-07-27T13:20:00.008+01:00

There's a new issue out now of Banipal, the UK-based magazine of Arabic literature -- and Issue 35 comes with a twist: the focus is on writers of Arab origin writing in Dutch, with ten writers including Palestinian-Dutch poet Ramsay Nasr, who is the Netherlands' Poet Laureate (an elected office). As Susannah Tarbush notes in her preview of the issue for the Saudi Gazette:

Nasr’s poems in Banipal 35 include “What’s left: A poem about empty dishes”; he was asked to write this poem shortly after becoming poet laureate, to mark the exhibiting at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam of the painting “Woman Holding a Balance” by the 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Some of Nasr’s work is overtly political, such as “The subhuman and his habitat” about Palestinians in the West Bank, from where his father originated.

All but two of the other writers are of Moroccan origin, complementing the issue's focus on new writing from Morocco (including poets Hassan Najmi and Ouidad Benmoussa, who were prevented by the Home Office from taking part in a Banipal-sponsored UK reading tour). The other two, Rada Sukkar and Rodaan Al-Galidi, are of Iraqi origin, represented by excerpts of their novels (respectively) The Treasure Room of Babylonia and Thirsty River, which will be published this autumn, in Luzette Strauss' translation, by newcomer on the UK translation scene Aflame Books.

To keep up with news from Banipal, you can now join their Facebook group. For Aflame's news, follow their RSS feed.

Literature Without Borders

2009-07-22T13:46:00.007+01:00

A few news items on the free movement and translation of literature across borders:

Iraqi novelist Fadhil al-Azzawi's novel The Last of the Angels is published has been translation by The Free Press [US], and the first review is out in the Quarterly Conversation.

*

Knesset Member Yuli Tamir has proposed a draft bill that would challenge the Israeli embargo on books published in Syria or Lebanon, making books in Arabic more available in Israel. Yuval Azoulay's article in Ha'aretz looks at the challenges facing readers coming through Israeli customs or looking to obtain books in Israel, with an update on the campaign against the embargo launched by Adalah, as the Atlas reported in February.

*

Emirati newspaper The National offers a global overview of its summer reading recommendations with a nifty hotspotted map. Recs include Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game and Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis. Chad at Three Percent suggests turning this format into a social networking app like Cities I've Visited on Facebook...

*

And Three Percent also put up this short video of the Big Think's interview with Alane Salierno Mason, founder of the brilliant Words Without Borders, discussing literature in translation. In other videos (the Big Think seems to work on one idea per short film), Alane discusses the continuing fortunes of publishers of translation, the guiding impulse for WWB and her thoughts on the power of Oprah.

Alaa al-Aswany on Islam in the media

2009-07-21T18:21:00.003+01:00

Another day, another novelist offering political analysis in The Guardian. Balancing out their recent contribution to the Amis Dental Reconstruction Fund, the paper has Alaa al-Aswany commenting -- rather more knowledgeably -- on the Western double-standard/standard-issue blindness where Islam is concerned. al-Aswany lived in Chicago (setting for his second novel) for several years, and his op-ed reflects his doubly-aware perspective, concluding

It is true that the west's policy treats us as colonial peoples who do not deserve to enjoy the rights of their citizens, and it is true that its media is mostly biased against Arabs and Muslims – but it is also true that the retrograde Wahhabi reading of Islam that is now widespread helps to entrench an unfair and mistaken image.

It is our duty to start with ourselves. We must save Islam from all the nonsense, falsehoods and retrograde ideas that have attached themselves to it. Democracy is the solution.

More on Beirut39 and the case of the disappearing judges

2009-07-20T13:22:00.002+01:00

The Tanjara has an interview with Alaa al-Aswany that explores his reasons for resigning as chair of the judging panel. Aswany commented that

“One day after I accepted their offer, I received a list of 90 names of young writers who were candidates for the competition. I later learned that those names had been chosen by the literary magazine Banipal, which issued its own selection."

This narrowed the original criteria of the competition, which had declared it was open to all writers under 40 of Arabic origin. al-Aswany also felt the award had been compromised by a lack of awareness in the Arab world:

“In Egypt no one was aware of the mere existence of this literary contest, except people with good connections in the cultural field and a bunch of journalists".

The deadline for candidacies has been extended to August 24th and the nominations page remains open to all.

Call for New Translations

2009-07-20T13:13:00.003+01:00

two lines World Writing in Translation will be accepting poetry and fiction submissions for its seventeenth volume through November 25, 2009. Previously unpublished translations from any language will be considered, and works from outside Europe are especially sought. The volume will be edited by award-winning translators Natasha Wimmer and Jeffrey Yang.

Submitters are encouraged to read previous volumes in the series, which can be ordered directly from the Center for the Art of Translation. Full submission guidelines here. Publishers interested in submitting manuscripts for serialization should contact Annie Janusch at ajanusch [at] catranslation.org.

Previously unpublished work only.
The translator cannot also be the author of the piece unless it is a co-translation.
We generally publish one to four poems from a single submission, but we will read up to a maximum of ten pages.
The average prose submission is about 2500 words, but we do publish shorter and longer pieces (1000–4000 words). Short stories are preferable to novel excerpts. However, novel excerpts will be considered if thoughtfully excerpted to stand as independent pieces (to the extent possible).
In order to be considered, submissions must include a brief introduction (400–500 words) with information about the original author, the background of the piece, and unique issues that the translation process presented. To see a sample introduction, click here. If you'd like to download it to your computer, right-click the link.
All submissions must include a copy of the original text.
Translators are expected to acquire copyright permission for all work not in the public domain.

Hanan al-Shaykh on Kensington Gardens

2009-07-17T12:14:00.006+01:00

It's a bit wet to enjoy the real thing at the moment, so it's cheering to see the original stories published in pamphlets about London's Royal Parks. It's particularly great to see a story by Hanan al-Shaykh, "A Beauty Parlour for Swans," published in Arabic and English facing-page translation by Christina Phillips with the author. al-Shaykh's previous novel, Only in London, gave a mordantly entertaining insight into the mixed-and-match worlds of the Arab community in London, so her take on Kensington Gardens promises things every bit as magical as Peter Pan.

Freedom of Expression=Freedom of Movement

2009-07-13T20:51:00.002+01:00

More on the story of the Ledbury poets (two Moroccan, one Indonesian -- hmm, what do those disparate countries have in common?) denied visas to read at the festival from Guardian columnist Henry Porter.

You can sign the Manifesto Club's petition to stop this deeply worrying trends here and join their Facebook group here.

Onyeka Igbe of WorldBytes reports in this video on the Club's Cabaret Without Borders: freedom of expression live in action.