Friday Finds: 12 Poems by Nabilah al-Zubair

Nabilah al-Zubair is a poet, short story writer, and novelist from Yemen:

Al-Zubair began writing in the early 1980s, and her first poetry collections were published in the 1990s. Her first novel, My Body, was published in 2000, and her poetry collections include: Motowalyat al-Katheba Al Ra’ey’a (Succession of The Great Lie, 1991), Thamet Baher Y’awedeni (There’s a Sea Returning to Me, 1997), Mahyia (Obliteration, 1999); Tenween al-Ghay’eb (The Third Person Pronoun, 2001), and Sa’ood ela Fardet Kabreet (Ascending to a Single Matchstick, 2003).

She is also a prolific journalist and campaigner for social change in Sana’a.

Nine of her short poems were translated by Barbara Croken and Antelak M. al-Mutawakel, and are available at World Poetry Movement.

Three more were translated by Yasmine Seale; they’re newly published at Two Lines:

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Three poems by the brilliant Yemeni writer Nabilah al-Zubair in my translation, thanks to @TwoLinesPress:

Flood game https://t.co/MixwMj6VpE
Game of difference https://t.co/nWzQSAFHU6
Game of reason https://t.co/0spAZydre8 pic.twitter.com/8oaadLcnXB

— Yasmine Seale (@yasmineseale) September 10, 2019

You can also watch her read at the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Medellín:

Al-Zubair’s poetry has also appeared, in Khaled al-Masri’s translation, in Banipal, and in Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. You can read more about it in this GoodReads review, and more about Zubair’s novel La…laysat ma’qula in Arab Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide, 1873-1999.

You can also find her زوج حذاء لعائشة available online.