Turkish Literature in Arabic & Other Tongues
"A closer look at the translation activities in the geography that shares certain common cultures with Turkey, six major translation junctions can be discerned: the Baghdad-centered translation movement, the Toledo movement in Andalusia, the era of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, the Ottoman Translation Chamber, the Translation Office in the Turkish Republic period, and the TEDA project." ...
April Translation Challenge: Konafa v. Qatayef
For our most recent Translation Challenge, hosted by Adam Talib, participants tried their hand at translating an 1882 text on taxation by ʿAbd Allāh an-Nadīm, and the results were "cruel and barbarous, blood-curdling and gut-wrenching." For this month's translation challenge, we hope the results will be sweeter. Join in the comments below or by emailing your translation of the challenge text to info@arablit.org. Any participant who wants free digital access to past issues of ArabLit Quarterly can mention that in the email. One participant will win a hard copy of the magazine. Have your translations in by April 20, 2022: Hosted by Brian Powell With Ramadan beginning at the start of April this year, I thought it would be fun ...
Anam Zafar Wins Inaugural ‘New Translator’s Bursary’ from Stinging Fly
Stinging Fly magazine today announced that Anam Zafar has been awarded their inaugural "New Translator’s Bursary," and that her selected translation of Najat Abed Alsamad’s work – along with her note about the process – is now available on their website ...
February Translation Challenge Results: ‘Cruel and Barbarous, Blood-curdling and Gut-wrenching’
"Literary translators cannot also be experts in the history of taxation so we often have to consult with academic experts when we work on texts like this. You know it already, but I’ll reiterate: collaboration is fundamental." ...
February Translation Challenge: ʿAbd Allāh an-Nadīm’s Powerful 1882 Text on Taxation
"An-Nadīm is so firmly rooted in a tragic historical narrative—he belongs so richly and consequentially to that moment in the 1880s—that his vivid, entertaining, and stirring language becomes inert, maudlin, and hackneyed." ...
What Is the Self in Self-Translation?
This is part of a special section on self-translation. By Ali Shakir Trivia What does the “self” in “self-translator” stand for? A hand that slices a bilingual author’s entity in half, yielding pieces where different tongues are spoken? Or is it a bridge that links the terrains on their opposite shores? Is it a buffer zone, a messenger, a part of some un-holy literary trinity? What is the self anyway? A two-dimensional plane, or an uncontainable organism? The child self, the adult self. The happy self, the not-so-happy self, the miserable self. The foolish self, the wise self, etc. … Which self is supposed to do the translation? Am I? It never occurred to me to translate an entire book ...
On Drawing Self-Translation
This is part of a special section on self-translation. By Deena Mohamed * Deena Mohamed is an Egyptian illustrator and designer. Her graphic novel trilogy Shubeik Lubeik was awarded Best Graphic Novel and the Grand Prize of the Cairo Comix Festival (2017). The English translation has been acquired by Pantheon Books (North America) and Granta (UK) for publication in spring 2022. You can find her work at deenadraws.art. * Also: Khalid Lyamlahy: On Self-Translating 'A Foreign Novel' Ali Shakir: What Is the Self in Self-Translation? Mona Kareem: Self-Translation Never Lands Dunya Mikhail: Writing it Twice Is the New Original ...
On Self-Translating ‘A Foreign Novel’
"Self-translation is no easy work. For me, it was an arduous confrontation not only with the act of re-writing but also with my language practices and preferences." ...
From Khalid Lyamlahy’s ‘A Foreign Novel’
Also read the author-translator's note, part of our special section on self-translation. By Khalid Lyamlahy Translated by Khalid Lyamlahy Excerpt 1 – Queuing at the Prefecture On my right, people under a wooden shed, in front of a metal gate. I walk their direction, convinced that my place is there: with them, amongst them. Brandishing my folder, as if wanting to share something with these foreigners, those who resemble me, I scramble to join them, as if they were lost brothers, with whom I’m only now reuniting after years of separation and turmoil. I join the end of the line. A child smiles at me. I smile back. I look at my watch. They should open the gate in exactly ...
Self-Translation Never Lands
This is part of a special section on self-translation. By Mona Kareem When I first started writing poems in Arabic at the age of ten, I called them “foreign poems.” I did not know at the time what a “prose poem” is, but I was able to tell that my prose poems were foreign, since they did not rhyme. I can say I had an unusual literary education, at least for an Arabic-language poet. I did not read poetry chronologically, and I did not discriminate between Arabic poetry and “foreign” poetry, or as we like to say in Arabic “world poetry,” simply because, until college, I was a monolingual Arabic speaker. I read Saniyya Salih next to Emily Dickinson, just ...
