“This is a book about books, about conventions of writing, reading, bookmaking, cultural creation and crossings, bristling with puns and long digressions about the “oddities of language, including its rare words”—a preoccupation that makes Davies’ translation all the more remarkable as a work of literature and scholarship both.”
“InterSastra is raising money to put together a series from banned writers around the world, translated into three languages: Indonesian, English, and Norwegian.”
If you’re in Cairo, this is where the fun is at.
“Complete with fight scenes, love scenes, and warrior women, this epic follows a woman and her son and their posse of friends as they move back and forth primarily in the Arab-Byzantine borderlands, with visits to Constantinople and to the caliph’s court in Baghdad.”
“How was the trip when you got picked at the airport because you were being loud in Arabic? Epic zeft.”
“[O]nly 0.6% of translations of foreign works into French are from the Arabic.”
“The five-title shortlists will be announced in September. “
“Women writers represent only about 30 percent of what’s translated into English.”
“I’m not entirely sure who shouldn’t read this. It’s tempting to hope that the Pamela Gellers, Robert Spencers, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadis of the world will overlook it. But actually I think it would be alright if they didn’t.”
“During the mentorship, just as before, experienced translators are matched with emerging translators for a six-month period. “
“Why haven’t there been more grants for Arabic literary projects? “
“Khalifa’s novel, deprived of its original concluding chapter, is transformed by the publisher and reviewers into Orientalist ethnographicism, inviting audiences to a ‘peek inside’ the harem.”
