A Corpus, Not a Canon: Translating Classical Arabic for the Modern Reader
On Nov. 20, a number of Library of Arabic Literature (LAL) stalwarts will be found at the Penn Bookstore in Philadelphia, giving a talk about “A Corpus, Not a Canon: Translating Classical Arabic for the Modern Reader”:
The talk will feature LAL Editorial Board members Shawkat Toorawa, who could make a discussion of drying paint fascinate, Devin Stewart and Joseph Lowry, LAL Managing Editor Chip Rossetti, and pioneering scholar-translator Roger Allen, whose translation of What ʿĪsā ibn Hishām Told Us, or, A Period of Time is set to come out next spring.
The LAL discussion will touch on the project’s “origins, how it selects its titles, and the challenge of making this rich literary tradition accessible to contemporary readers.” More details here.
ArabLit has discussed a number of the translations with LAL translator-editors. If you aren’t in Philadelphia:
Interviews
Philip Kennedy: These Books Shouldn’t Just Hide on a Shelf
Joseph Lowry: Translating ‘Sharia’ for a Contemporary American Audience
Joseph Lowry: Forthcoming Literature of the Courtesans at the Abbasid Court
Tahera Qutbuddin: ‘A Treasury of Virtues’: Ali’s Influence on Contemporary Arabic Literature
Gregor Schoeler: Who’s the Heretic Here?
Geert Jan van Gelder: Translators Need to Love Compromises
Humphrey Davies: Climbing Translation’s Mt. Everest
Michael Cooperson: ‘As Detailed A Picture of Ibn Ḥanbal’s World as We’re Likely to Get’
Th. Emil Homerin: On Translating ‘A’ishah al-Ba’uniyyah, Perhaps Arabic’s Most Prolific Premodern Woman Writer
Sean W. Anthony: The Salty Language of an Early Biography of Muhammad
Other LAL Discussions
Library of Arabic Literature Board on ‘Translating the Untranslatable’
On Collaboratively Translating Arabic: ‘We Don’t Want To Do the Notes’
November 16, 2014 @ 3:35 am
Good