Robin Moger has translated several poems, as well as a novel excerpt, by Ahmed Shafie; the latest for the Spring 2017 issue of Seedings magazine:
Shafie was a 2014 International Writing Program resident; his translation of Russell Edson’s Collected Prose Poems was one of Muhammad Abdelnaby’s “favorite reads” of 2015.
The newly translated poems open:
In his other life Issa wished to be a white butterfly and when he had achieved that, wished to be a cherry blossom.
The cherry blossom remembered that Issa had never in his life picked a blossom, for which reason he was a fool.
It thought: that which wished to be a white butterfly was a fool and that which wished to be a cherry blossom was a fool.
The cherry blossom wished that somebody might pick it and did not know if this was a natural thing for cherry blossoms to feel.
Keep reading from the poems in Seedings.
Also translated by Robin Moger: