Translator Valentina Viene profiles “Muslim Libyan Arab British graphic novelist” Asia Alfasi, who has moved from writing about her identity to, more broadly, life in Libya and Scotland.
“I decided to translate him after reading the first few pages of ‘The Confines of the Shadow,’ so almost immediately.”
“Ongoing political turmoil may not bode well for Yemen, but if 2014 is any indication, the outlook for its national literary scene is a promising one.”
Wednesday morning, the MacArthur Foundation announced its list of “Genius Grants.” On the list to receive a no-strings-attached stipend of $625,000 is Libyan poet and translator Khaled Mattawa, who said he plans to use the money to further his translations and take on larger projects.
Translator Max Shmookler, who is currently co-editing a collection of Sudanese short stories with ArabLit contributor Raphael Cormack, continues to write, in a posts that first appeared on Baraza, about the challenges of bringing the “best” Sudanese literature into English.
Max Shmookler — who previously wrote about “How To Separate Mediocre, Good, and Great Stories for Translation” and his work in assembling a collection of Sudanese short stories — now explores the literary scene in Khartoum in a post that originally appeared on Baraza.
Emerging Sudanese author Mansour El Souwaim has received a number of plaudits. He was named one of the “Beirut39” in 2009, one of the top 39 Arab authors under 40, won the Tayeb Salih award for his second novel, and was selected to participate in the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction nadwa. Souwaim has a new novel out, The Last Sultan, which Nassir Elsayed Elnour says “calls on us to rethink history.”
Translator Max Shmookler, who is currently co-editing a collection of Sudanese short stories with ArabLit contributor Raphael Cormack, explores the tension between what Sudanese readers think is a great story and the story that will appear “great” in English translation.
Alessandro Spina — the nom de plume of Benghazi-born author Basili Shafik Khouzam — died last year, two weeks before André Naffis-Sahely came to an agreement with a London publisher to translate his epic “The Confines of the Shadow,” which, Naffis-Sahely writes, “belongs alongside panoptic masterpieces like ‘Buddenbrooks,’ ‘The Man Without Qualities’ and ‘The Cairo Trilogy.'”
