On Palestinian Literature in Lithuania

 

On Palestinian Literature in Lithuania:

In Conversation with Giedrė Steikūnaitė, Ina Kiseliova-El Marassy, and Ingrida Tatolytė

Giedrė Steikūnaitė is an independent journalist, writer, and translator. The co-founder of Palestina.lt, Steikūnaitė is editor of Alyvmedžio garsai (Sounds of an Olive Tree, Istornešiai, 2025) and author of Palestina: laisvė yra labai graži (Palestine: Freedom Is Very Beautiful, Alma littera, 2017), a collection of first-person accounts and the first book on Palestine published in Lithuania.

Ina Kiseliova-El Marassy is a scholar of Islamic studies, a member of the Lithuanian Society for the Study of Religions, a doctoral candidate in philosophy, and a translator. Together with Saudada Mockevičiūtė, she translated a collection of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry into Lithuanian.

Ingrida Tatolytė is a translator, editor, and a scholar of translation, literature, and culture.

The three answered questions about the publication of a new Lithuanian-literature anthology of Palestinian literature and the small blossoming of Palestinian literature in Lithuanian translation.

Congratulations on the publication of the new Lithuanian-language anthology of Palestinian poetry in translation, Alyvmedžio garsai! Can you start by setting the stage for us, a little, when it comes to the landscape of Lithuanian literature and Lithuanian readers and publishers? What sort of place has there been for Palestinian literature in Lithuanian translation? What kind of familiarity is there with Palestinian poetry? For instance, Giedrė, you mentioned to me that this year saw the first translation of Mahmoud Darwish’s work into Lithuanian?

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: It is assumed that there are some three million speakers of the Lithuanian language in the world. Obviously, not all of them enjoy poetry, or even reading. But there are hundreds of books—of varying quality—being published by dozens of publishing houses every year. Yet somehow, it’s only now that we are discovering Palestinian poetry in our native tongue.

A decade or so ago, you could say the word “Palestine” out loud and get no reactions, because people here simply hadn’t heard of it, at least not in the context of the Palestinian cause. Or they’d heard some diluted, unsure-of-itself version of the Bible-Israel-Pakistan?, quite common in these parts of the world at the time. Or they just didn’t bother themselves with any of it, really.

So when Palestinian literature did start appearing, for us it was a victory over total blackout, and at the same time a graceful invitation for readers to become curious about it not only for its artistic and literary value, but also as a gateway into the larger field of the Palestinian cause.

So, after a long period of silence or absence, suddenly there is a small blossoming of Palestinian literature in Lithuanian, including Darwish’s “Tapatybės kortelė: rinktiniai eilėraščiai” (ID Card), a collection of 10 Palestinian short stories, edited and translated to Lithuanian by Gema Sabonytė, and your beautiful anthology, part of the efforts of Palestina.lt.

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: Yes, and they are all firsts for us in the Lithuanian language, in their own categories: the first anthology of contemporary Palestinian poetry, the first collection of Darwish’s poetry, and the first collection of short fiction stories from Palestine.

They were all published in this year alone, which, I believe, reflects the expanding space for Palestinian literature in Lithuania—a land that has been put under the spell of Zionist narrative for so long. At the same time, it probably also has to do with the wider public awareness of the Palestinian cause, brought about by the genocide in Gaza. There is a sense, I believe, among the translators at least, that these different works will find their readers—something that only ten years ago would have been much more difficult to imagine.

Can you tell us what has changed, what is changing, (and what you think still needs to be changed), in terms of the availability of Palestinian literature in Lithuanian and its reception by critics and readers?

Ingrida Tatolytė: I dare to think that, at present, we are witnessing a growing interest in Palestinian literature among translators, readers, and publishers. From 2021 until today, we have two short prose collections, two poetry collections, and one novel in translation published, with a second novel on its way.

If the very first prose collection, titled Sumud reiškia tvirtybė: palestiniečių kelias (Sumoud Means Steadfastness: The Palestinian Road, 2021), was a personal initiative and achievement of translator activist Gema Sabonytė, from 2023 onwards we have seen two small but significant independent publishing houses stepping in with a novel—Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, or in Lithuanian Menka detalė, translated by Julija Gulbinovič—and Darwish’s poetry collection, translated by Saudada Mockevičiūtė and Ina Kiseliova-El Marassy (Rara and Hubris, respectively); this year we are also awaiting the publication of susan abulhawa’s novel Against The Loveless World, translated into Lithuanian as Prieš nemylintį pasaulį by Patricija Droblytė-Dainė. The latter is being published by a major publisher—Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishing House—that is hugely influential in Lithuanian literary circles.

The linguistic representation of Palestinian authors in translation is also growing; the first collection, Sumoud, was a translation of Palestinian authors writing in English. Next, the Lithuanian literary and cultural field was enriched by two literary translations of Palestinian prose (Shibli’s Minor Detail) and poetry (a collection of work by Mahmoud Darwish) from the Arabic; these are the first direct translations from Arabic to Lithuanian published in book format in the entire history of Lithuanian publishing.

Our poetry collection translated from three languages represents an even larger scope and complexity of Palestinian identity reflected on so profoundly in the poetry itself. Altogether, it is a huge shift from having merely nothing to an attempt of a fully-fledged representation of Palestinian literature in its variety.

I would expect that this shift is happening for several reasons. First, there is a strong need for more information, more material to ground our opinions on in the face of what is happening not only in Palestine, but in Southwest Asia more broadly. On behalf of translators and partly publishers, there is an urge to introduce Palestinian literature in its own right as one of the major, rich literatures of the world; and now we have translators and editors capable of doing so. But also, the larger publishers are getting interested in it because Palestinian literature is being increasingly acknowledged worldwide for its mastery and is receiving awards and critical acclaim.

What remains to be seen is the reception from critics and readers. The very first translation of work by a Palestinian author, of Edward Said’s seminal work Orientalism (published in Lithuanian translation in 2006, translated by Violeta Davoliūtė and Kazimieras Seibutis) was met with very negative reviews and reception among academics and literary figures (although its translation was commended for high quality); its criticism of “Western centrism” was unacceptable for many academics in Lithuania, which had just regained its independence from the Soviet Union some 15 years before, and thus strongly identified with the “West.”

After this, a very long period of silence followed. Appearing in 2023, Shibli’s novel was met with a more sympathetic ear and received a well-deserved literary review by a solid literary researcher and critic (Dalia Satkauskytė). However, none of the other cultural or literary publications showed interest. Perhaps they still will.

I am happy to see that our poetry collection is getting noticed and I hope it will bring Palestinian poetry to readers and readers to Palestinian poetry; both parties are worthy of this meeting.

Can you talk a little about how Alyvmedžio garsai came about? Why poetry? Also, there are a wide variety of Palestinian poets in the anthology: from Refaat Alareer and Hiba Abu Nada, who were killed in Gaza by Israeli forces; to Basman Eldirawi who left Gaza for Cairo right before October 7 and has been separated from his family; to poets in the West Bank like Ahlam Bsharat; to those in the diaspora. How did you decide on the poets and the arrangement of their work?

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: As a tiny independent collective, Palestina.lt—the first and until very recently, the only platform dedicated to Palestine in Lithuania—has been operating since 2018. And yet, after years of exposing the crimes of the Israeli regime in Palestine (and beyond) through the lens of colonialism and decolonization, of drawing parallels between the Palestinian cause and our own history (a small nation under occupation that has lived through the tragedy of forced exile in our grandparents’ generation), of presenting various elements of the Palestinian culture—after years of doing that, as well as organizing protests, suddenly, when we were met with October 8th and onwards, non-stop, we were left almost paralyzed by the scope of the crimes committed against Gaza. It felt like mere human decency and existence itself, let alone moral values or justice—none of that had any weight anymore, the tragedy was being made to happen no matter what, with impunity.

So, we turned to poetry for consolation. And we found it there, because, as is said, poetry does not lie. You cannot fake poetry, as you can “news” reports or “history” books. For example, Samer Abu Hawwash’s poem “From the River to the Sea,” which by the way I first read in Arablit Quaterly’s Gaza! Gaza! Gaza! issue in Arabic and in Huda Fakhreddine’s translation, is one that I still, almost two years on, cannot read out loud without my voice breaking around mid-way.

The choice of poems to include in our collection was guided by subjective experience rather than specific rules. No doubt, we wanted to mirror the realities of living Palestinian poetry: to represent the huge variety of writing styles and formats, as well as topics, to a certain degree, or rather angles through which the experience is lived. Fragmented geography is also a reality for Palestinian poets—so we included poets who live in various parts of Palestine, from Gaza to Al-Quds, and others who are now buried there; refugee poets, poets in the Diaspora of various generations, and those who, like Basman Eldirawi, have been stranded in between. We are enormously grateful to all of them for kindly giving us permission to translate their poetry. We pledged to donate half of the profits from book sales to initiatives dedicated to the people of Gaza.

The collection is divided into two parts: “Let It Be A Tale” (from Refaat Alareer’s If I Must Die) and “Every Name, Every Stone” (as in Samer Abu Hawwash’s From the River to the Sea). Rhythmically, that’s what made sense to me in arranging the poems: waving like the sea from death to life to in-between, from the moment you have to take your eyes away from the page because the sorrow emanating from it is too much to hold, to the moment you realize looking away is not an option, not for you anyway, and you return, to remain truthful not only to the poetry in front of you, but also to yourself.

Can you tell us a little about the title, which you said translates to The Sounds of an Olive Tree and the evocative cover image?

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: From the beginning, I wanted the title to be a line from a poem, and when the poet Tadas Zaronskis, who translated Olivia Elias’ Migration des étoiles, suggested the line savez-vous le bruit que fait un olivier qui s’écroule racines à l’air ? [do you know the sound of an olive tree being uprooted?, tr. Kareem James Abu-Zeid], the image suddenly materialized in words: the olive tree symbolizing not only the Palestinians’ belonging to the land, but also the people themselves— their uprooting, in deafening silence, echoing the world over.

That is partly why in my introduction to the collection I write about the different types of silence: the one born out of fear, or complacency; the one pretending that all is well, and keeping quiet… And then there is silence that engulfs you when words are no longer sufficient to describe what we’re witnessing. It is this particular silence that only poetry is capable of accompanying.

On the cover, we used an oil painting titled Olive Tree by the Lithuanian artist Ara Radvilė, who kindly offered to provide us with an original artwork for this book. We loved it.

You translated work by Palestinian writers working in three languages: Arabic, English, French. How did you pull together your translators and translation community?

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: Well, there are only a few professional Arabic to Lithuanian translators around, we all know each other and we all have Palestine in our hearts, so it was quite easy to get two of them—Julija Gulbinovič and Ina Kiseliova-El Marassy—on board!

From French— the language that poet Tadas Zaronskis translates from—we have one poem, that of Olivia Elias, which he really liked and offered to translate, and with English it was Ingrida Tatolytė, whom I know from Palestine solidarity work, and myself.

How would you like to see readers engaging with these poems?

Ingrida Tatolytė: Oh, really, I would like readers to read this poetry as they read any other poetry—with an open heart, tuning their ear to what they hear. Maybe, finding the answers to questions they have, finding a way to express what is “unsayable,” as Ada Limón calls it. I sometimes do.

I think that initially I translated it because it speaks to me. Because it is a powerful and beautiful poetry, and when I read it, I want to hear it voiced in my own language, a language that I love so profoundly. This is why I lend my voice to it, I extend it with my translation like with a prosthesis, hoping to help it to reach more readers who can appreciate the fragile beauty, depth, and power of its words. So, in a way, when I translate, I don’t think of it as a genocide poetry, I feel and think of it simply as POETRY.

Ina Kiseliova-Al Marassy: It seems to me that those of us who are translators from the Arabic language, or who work in this field in academia—we never just appear out of nowhere. It is a very consciously chosen path, and thus, when we translate, we already have a much deeper understanding of the subject matter.

That is why, both in the Darwish and in the contemporary poetry collection, my voice as a translator seeks not only to reveal the charm of the Arabic language while maintaining restraint and delving into its essence, but also to somehow reach those who know little to nothing about Palestine or the Arabic-speaking world in general. So that words such as home, homeland, mother, exile, and torment would resonate with them in a different way. We Lithuanians usually understand them through a romanticized nationalistic prism, but we have little experience of what I would call the “wounded poetry” that arises from suffering, longing, and hope—all at the same time.

I want the reader to listen to these unfamiliar sounds and discover parallels with their own world, or perhaps imagine, even if just for a moment, what it was, is, and can be like there, in the future.

If, after reading these poems, just one person goes on to find out more about the history of Palestine, then my goal will have been achieved. Indeed, it has already been achieved, as I’ve received messages from people saying that this is exactly what they did. To me, this means the veil of ignorance has been removed from their eyes.

What other Palestinian literature(s) would you like to see available to Lithuanian readers, and how do you see it spreading to — and creating — new audiences?

Giedrė Steikūnaitė: That which expands their understanding and is admired for its beauty as well as its truthfulness. Ghassan Kanafani, Sahar Khalifeh, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, susan abulhawa, Isabella Hammad, Mohammed El Kurd, Raja Shehadeh, Mourid Barghouti, Ibrahim Nasrallah, and many others I’ve read and admired—their works are precious, and they teach a lot.

It was Ghada Karmi’s In Search of Fatima that first introduced me to Palestine many years ago, and thanking Dr. Karmi for this in person in London back in the early 2010s was, to me, another present in itself.

In this short-attention-span / rapidly booming images / quick messages / tiktok / instagram / whatever epoch, I find that literature grounds me. I hope that many more people realize this profound truth, and use its gifts accordingly.