"Isn’t our notion of the classic influenced by the other? Doesn’t the standing of Arabic literature rely upon foreign literature?"
The Art of Practical Translation and Al-Razi’s ‘Zīnat al-Kataba’
Although, one must note, "Take it out when maggoty" is a delightful sentence.
Introducing ‘The Mu`allaqat for Millennials’
"Aiming to make the mu`allaqat known to new readers, the project gathers a team of eight commentators and translators."
Enass Khansa and Bilal Orfali on Editing a Series of Classical Arabic Texts for Young Readers
"Something that I was aware of growing up in Syria, but more now that I’m in Lebanon, is that classical Arabic literature is associated with many things, but it’s not associated with being a space for creative and experimental thinking. So I think the main idea for both of us with this is experimental."
‘Inventing a Night Language’: On Translating the 1001
"I wanted to see if I could create a night-language, or find some form to reflect the fact that this is a night work...and the fact that these stories take place where dreams should be."
From ALQ’s Crime Issue: Meet the Banu Sasan
Brad Fox called in from lockdown in Peru to read from -- and discuss -- his translation (or recovery? or adaptation?) of Abu Dulaf's "Song of the Banu Sasan."
Summer of Lock-in Lit: Cartooning with Popeye & Curly
"Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea in my head. Other times I ravage entire books looking for the spark of a joke. I have read more widely on the subject of medieval Baghdad this spring and summer than I have since grad school, and this has been time very well spent."
Saints, Goats, and Genealogy: The First Volume of al-Yūsī’s Discourses
"Al-Yūsī’s orientation, and Morocco’s orientation at the time, was toward the south. It’s something that we don’t think about today."
Al-Yūsī’s Discourses: Situating a Sufi Scholar in a Vivid 17th-Century Morocco
"It’s not quite the same as a purely autobiographical text, but it’s almost more interesting for that. They’re more like mini-essays. I do think that the work, for that reason, can be read by people who aren’t interested in seventeenth-century Morocco."
Friday Finds: Language and Craft in the ‘Thousand and One Nights’
The talk, titled "Her Own Devices: Language and Craft in the Thousand and One Nights," is introduced by Marina Warner.
10 Recipes from Medieval Arabic Texts
The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were -- among other things -- a wonderful period for Arabic cookery compilations, several of which have recently been translated to English.
In Love and Word Ensnared
Mourns a friend and blames time
that struck her down with what struck me
