Still, the Thousand and One Nights have a bad reputation. When we were young, we only read abridged versions—all the explicit scenes were censored. I later read the complete version. The tales express all the dreams that human beings share, yet some people have given themselves the right to confiscate parts of these dreams.
While at the sea, I read a number of books. Two that made an odd pairing were Hanna Mina’s Fragments of Memory (trans. Lorne Kenny and Olive Kenny) and Jose Saramago’s Small Memories (trans. from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa).
This Wednesday (while I was still at the sea), PEN announced the winners of their 2011 literary awards. There were two very worthy winners in the two translation categories. One was for a work of poetry, and the other for prose, although both could be classed as Arabic poetry.
Fleur Montanaro, who took over administration of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction last September, is currently visiting Cairo. Montanaro was born in Malta and grew up in Malta, Nigeria and London; her MA is in English literature, and she later studied Arabic at SOAS.
Multi–award-winning Susan Bernofsky, widely considered to be one of the best English translators of German literature today, has translated works by Robert Walser, Hermann Hesse, and Yoko Tawada. Among other […]
(What’s wrong with our president?) ماله الريس? by (Egyptian colloquial poet) Ahmed Fouad Negm, trans. Walaa Quisay I never fret, and will always say A word, for which I am […]
I won’t make the opening week of the 2011 “not a substitute for the Cairo International Book Fair” Fair, as it coincides with the annual ArabLit summer vacation.* But the […]
Poetry “The Fountain,” by Syrian poet Aïcha Arnaout, trans. Cécile Oumhani “The Trial,” by Syrian poet Saniyya Salih, trans. Gaelle Raphael “The Mothers” and “Path of Light,” by Tunisian poet […]
For some, Ramadan is a time of food and family. For some, it’s a time to improve themselves spiritually. And for some, it’s a time to bite everyone else’s heads off because one can’t smoke a cigarette all day long. For Mahfouz:
