If modern Arabic literature in English translation had a patron saint, it was Denys Johnson-Davies.
Advertisements
translation
An Excerpt from Mansoura Ez Eldin’s ‘Emerald Mountain’
“Cairo was my final stop, where I would find what I was looking for. Cairo, where—thirty-two years after I bade him goodbye—I sit, knitting words together, weaving together the tale missing from the Thousand and One Nights.”
Sunday Submissions: ‘Transference’ Seeks Translated Arabic Poems for Fall 2017 Issue
“Along with the translated poem(s), translators should also submit a commentary on the translation process, addressing particular challenges posed by the text or specific translation choices.”
Friday Finds: ‘Arabic Readers Are Devouring’ Books Translated from Chinese?
“Arabic readers are devouring autobiographies by Chinese entrepreneurs like Robin Li, Jack Ma, Pony Ma and Ren Zhengfei.”
Sunday Submissions: ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship Program
The “non-language-specific” mentor for prose will be the brilliant Polish-English translator Bill Johnston, with the poetry mentor TBD.
‘Translate at City’ Co-winners About Why the Summer Program Works, How It Could Be Better
“Comma Press offered us a choice from several short stories from two forthcoming books, ‘Iraq + 100’ and ‘The Sea Cloak.’ We were then asked to translate a short extract of our choice by a deadline and, if they liked the translation, then it would be used in the final book.”
Removing the Frame: Discussing Saud al-Sanousi’s ‘The Bamboo Stalk’
“Wright pointed out that the Arabic original was framed as a translation itself, supposedly from a notebook written in Tagalog.”
Sunday Submissions: Apply for 3rd Annual Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference
According to organizers, “this conference aims to strengthen the visibility and access to high quality literary translations in the United States and to acknowledge that translators require the same training and skills as creative writers.”
Friday Finds: 20 Great Translators Under 40
“The other project I’m currently translating is called “the Mu’allaqat,” and I’ve tentatively titled the English ‘The Hanging Poems: The Ten Classic Works of Pre-Islamic Poetry.'”
Elisabeth Jaquette Wins PEN/Heim Grant to Translate Short-story Collection by Rania Mamoun
“Providing a platform for Mamoun and other authors from the seven banned countries is even more important in a time when the US is shutting its borders and stoking racist xenophobia. But work like hers should not be forced to exist in a space defined primarily by the narrative of security. Eventually, I hope readers pick up these stories for their emotional intimacy, depictions of urban alienation, and blurred lines between reality and the imaginary.”
Reading Don Quixote in Haifa
“If it were up to me, I might have given our hero an Arab name and origins in a Palestinian village few people had ever heard of. Maybe something like The Adventures of Don Abu Mukh from Baqa, or The Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant Don Rohana from Issifia.”
Friday Finds: Samah Selim on Translation Not as a ‘Marketplace’ or ‘Bridge’
I’m not so interested anymore in the idea of translation as “marketplace” or “bridge”, but as a form of radical knowledge production. My current book translation project (the first in five years or so) reflects this interest: a long-neglected memoir by a young Egyptian communist (and woman) of the 1970s student uprising generation.
