Friday Finds: ‘The Unnamable Remains’ by Jewish Poet Qasmuna Bint Ismail

For Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth), a discovery: Yasmine Seale translates the great 12th-century Arabic-language Jewish poet of Andalusia, Qasmuna bint Ismail:

Only a few of Qasmuna’s poems are extant, preserved in later anthologies. Yasmine Seale has translated all of the extant works.

From Seale’s rich translations, which appear over at Youssef Rakha’s Cosmopolitan Hotel:

One day she looked in the mirror, and considered that she was beautiful and had not married. She said:

There I see a garden ripe

For reaping, but not one

Palm spread for picking.

Read all of it: The Unnamable Remains: Yasmine Seale translates Qasmuna bint Ismail