In their October issue, Poetry magazine announced winners of eight annual prizes for the best work published in the magazine over the past 12 months. Among the eight honored for their poetry, translations, and prose was Arabic translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid, for his translations of Dunya Mikhail and Najwan Darwish.
This past summer, as part of a workshop on “The Possibilitiies of Arab-Jewish Thought,” Najat Abdulhaq spoke about “Rethinking Narratives: The Emergence of the ‘Arab Jew’ in Contemporary Arabic Literature,” a talk recently posted to SoundCloud. Abdulhaq discusses the phenomenon and speculates about reasons behind this blossoming of new novels.
A back-and-forth with the author and translator of the witty, wild Women of Karantina (2013), released last month in excellent, gum-snapping English translation.
The five shortlists for the Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children’s Literature were announced several days ago at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but the press release didn’t come out until October 11, which meant many shortlistees found out who they were only yesterday.
This year’s American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) conference will feature a new opportunity: “Speed-Dating for Editors and Translators.”
“Had the committee for the Nobel Prize decided at an earlier date than 1988 that recognition should be given to the renaissance that was occurring in modern Arabic literature, the prize would surely have been awarded to Tawfiq al-Hakim.”
Submissions for the Brunel University African Poetry Prize opened October 1. Submissions — from African poets who have not yet published a book-length work, and/or their translators — will be accepted until Nov. 30.
Mohammed Albakry recently published “Between the Human and the Foreign: Translating Arabic Drama for the Stage,” in which he discusses the particular obstacles of translating Arabic drama into English. It’s a different kettle of fish, after all, from translating Arabic poetry or prose.
The winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature will be revealed this Thursday. There’s no way of knowing who is on the Swedish Academy’s shortlist — at least not until the archives are opened up fifty years from now — but we do know who’s on the betting rolls.
