“She was seated at the black piano. The music had evaporated from her head, and only crooked melodies stumbled from her fingers.”
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Poetry in Translation: The 13th Century ‘My Religion—My Wine’
The author of the text translated here — one of the two poems by Nasir that appeared in the FOLK issue of ArabLit Quarterly — is a Jewish poet and popular entertainer named Nasir, who enjoyed local acclaim in Mamluk-era Cairo around the year 1300 CE.
Read moreLit & Found: David Larsen on Translation ‘As a Constraint-based Form of Writing’
“As part of a series on poetry and translation for the Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books blog, scholar and translator of pre-modern Arabic literature David Larsen delves into the conjunction that joins translation with poetry, the and between them.”
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Najwan Darwish and the Politics/Poetics of Translating Exhaustion
“Translators of Palestinian poetry, in addition to untangling the poetics of pain (or in our case, exhaustion), carry the additional burden of making people listen.”
Read moreSarah Enany Wins 2021 Banipal Translation Prize for ‘The Girl with Braided Hair’
“A unanimous choice for the excellence and readability
of both its original and translated versions.”
Poetry in Translation: Fadi Azzam’s ‘This Is Damascus, You Sons of Bitches’
“She has enough patience to wait for a climax with the force an earthquake, and enough shoes and slippers hanging in al-Hamidiyah market to whack fifty deserving dictators.”
Read morePoetry Translation Projects from Arabic, Kurdish Win 2022 NEA Fellowships
Translators working from Arabic and Kurdish were among the two dozen working on a wide range of literary projects selected for 2022 National Endowment for the Arts (US) Literary Translation Fellowships.
Read moreHow (and Why) to Subscribe to a Serialized ‘Kafka in Tangier’ Translation, Free
“As much as I adore Aaliya, I still harbor aspirations of being a necessary translator – or, more modestly and accurately, a translator who is read.”
Read moreShort Fiction: Zuher Karim’s ‘The Awakening of Abdulmonam’
“This is a confusing experience, not intended to be comical in any way, shape, or form.”
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