" This novel was the most emotional for me to translate, as it also marked the end of a comfortable childhood for me and my siblings, and the beginning of a life in exile."
‘Tart Bites’ Podcast on ArabicEnglish Translation Launches Today
"I've always wanted to start a conversation around translation, from the very beginning of my career."
Translator Sampsa Peltonen on Why Hassan Blasim’s ‘God99’ Is Like Parkour
"The arselongness of the text made me think about how the traceurs keep plunging forwards all the time, almost like just past their tipping point, foolhardily hopping over things, dashing and ploughing into walls. Parkour is also often practised in urban places that smell of piss and fast-food and where you need to watch out you don't step on broken glass or used condoms."
Finding a Voice in English for ‘My Heart Became a Bomb’
"Too frequently, I think, translators give in to the idea that a foreign text needs to retain a lot of that foreignness—this is Venuti’s foreignizing versus domesticating debate."
Working on ‘Warda’: ‘Challenging in all the Ways a Translation Project Could Be’
"Like I say, it’s fleeting, but I could write a whole memoir, I think, just about getting that sentence translated."
Friday Finds: Emma Ramadan on Translating Meryem Alaoui’s ‘Straight From the Horse’s Mouth’
The Asymptote Book Club's September 2020 selection was Emma Ramadan's translation of Meryem Alaoui's Straight from the Horse's Mouth: As part of the book-club materials, Asymptote editor Allison Braden talked … Continue reading Friday Finds: Emma Ramadan on Translating Meryem Alaoui’s ‘Straight From the Horse’s Mouth’
Works by Adania Shibli, Jonas Hassen Khemiri Are 2020 National Book Awards Finalists
Palestinian author Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, in Elisabeth Jaquette’s translation from Arabic, and Tunisian-Swedish writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s The Family Clause, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menziet, both made the 2020 shortlist of the National Book … Continue reading Works by Adania Shibli, Jonas Hassen Khemiri Are 2020 National Book Awards Finalists
‘The Dangers of Poetry’: Translating Poetry to History
"Poetry brought a certain degree of cultural legitimacy to politicians, who simultaneously cultivated the support of prominent poets and feared the repercussions of their failure to do so."
Arabic Events at American Literary Translators Association’s 2020 (Virtual) Conference
The complete 2020 schedule is now online. For this year's virtual event, there will be five types of events. These are: sessions, readings, workshops, special events, and -- for the first time this year -- caucuses.
Friday Finds: The Dialects of Oil & Rain
At the end of last month, three writers -- Mona Kareem, Deepak Unnikrishnan, and Krupa Ge -- talked about translation, transience, the Gulf, belonging, and more.
Shadow Heroes: Arabic Translation (and More) in the Classroom
"Translation is not a field of instant (or even delayed) validation. Mostly we do the work and leave it in the proverbial drawer for months or years, or we send it out into the world and hear nothing (or just murmurs) back. So classroom work offers a nice change."
Mehmet Hakkı Suçin on Translating Mahmoud Darwish into Turkish
"For instance, the Palestinian society is more familiar with references to Christianity than the Turkish society. ... So while translating Darwish's works, I brought the references to verses from the Bible or the Torah to the attention of Turkish readers."