Sunday Submissions: Exchanges ‘Endurance’ Issue
The University of Iowa’s Exchanges magazine has opened calls for submissions for its ‘Endurance’ issue. Exchanges accept translations of poetry, short or excerpted fiction, plays, and literary nonfiction into English. They also welcome submissions of visual art, of any medium, to be considered as companion pieces to accepted translations. These are the submission guidelines: Both the original text and the translation in a copy-pastable text file format. Please, no .pdfs. If you absolutely must submit a .pdf in order to make the submission deadline, please notify us of this in your submission, and be prepared to supply a copy-pastable text file in advance of publication. Brief biographies (100-150 words each) of both author and translator. A Translator's Note (150-500 words, ...
Lit & Found: On Humor in Poetry and Translation
"If you are trying to avoid reproducing violence or trauma as it is, if you are trying to distill something in it that evokes something that makes it relatable, or accessible to a stranger—to make it vulnerable—humor plays a beautiful role there." ...
Shady Lewis in Paris, on the Launch of the French Translation of ‘On the Greenwich Line’
The event for Lewis at the Institut du Monde Arabe, which took place on a sunny day in Paris, was packed, and while he spoke in Arabic via an interpreter, the majority of the audience had obviously read him in Arabic and were already laughing by the time his sentences were translated into French ...
Encounters Between Languages: Nancy Roberts on Translating Ibrahim al-Koni’s ‘The Night Will Have Its Say’
"I was aware from the very start of the novel that one of its themes would be language, translation, and encounters between languages. This was one of the things that drew me to it, including the amusing and lyrical way the author describes the opening encounter between al-Kahina and the envoy sent by the Muslim general Hasan Ibn al-Nuꜥman." ...
A Conversation About Miral Altahawy’s IPAF-shortlisted ‘Days of the Shining Sun’
" This is a godless world, even though Allah is mentioned all the time. The only possible heroism in the novel is that of survival in face of misery." ...
‘What Have You Left Behind’: On Translating Trauma, and What To Do After Reading About Yemen
When the book went out for review, a number of reviewers got in contact with me saying what can we do after we read a book like this? So I asked Bushra: “What do you want readers to do?" ...
Ahmad M. Ahmad on Translating Nathalie Handal into Arabic
"The biggest difference is Nathalie’s poetic techniques are unfamiliar in Arabic. As a translator, I have tried to communicate these techniques faithfully, to preserve the poet's tone and breath, to preserve the fine, close thread that connects the technique to the essence of the poem." ...
Author Mohamed Kheir on Surreal Coincidences and the Mysteries of Translation
" One day, I read Lorca's wonderful poem "Elegy to a Bullfighter," translated into Arabic by a great Arab poet. I was agitated by the translation, not because I knew Spanish -- I don't know Spanish -- but because I memorized the poem from another translation, which had been done by a man who was neither a poet nor a translator. " ...
Mona Kareem on Translation: ‘Embrace Your Invisibility As a Superpower’
"Embrace your invisibility as a superpower." ...
‘No In-Between’: 10 Book Titles Changed in Translation
"Titles are complicated, because it’s different from the actual content. It makes sense; you want titles to evoke something in the audience. But sometimes, they’re not the best choices.” ...
