Sarah Irving and Henry Bell, co-editors of the forthcoming volume of Palestinian poetry in translation — A Bird is not a Stone — are perhaps the first to run a successful crowdfunding campaign to promote Arabic literature in translation. ArabLit wanted to hear more about how they did it, and why they thought it worked.
Fawaz Azem has translated three new Syrian poems — one from Dima Yousf and two from Nihad Sayed Issa — all responding, in some way, to the nation’s current landscape.
I don’t usually post CFPs, but since I know a number of you teach Arabic literature (in translation).
Tunisian poet Inas Abassi reviews Amir Tag Elsir’s 366, longlisted for this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
Th. Emil Homerin, author of the recently-published The Principles of Sufism, has long been interested in the work of ‘A’ishah al-Ba’uniyyah, who is perhaps the most prolific and prominent woman who wrote in Arabic prior to the modern period. Homerin, a professor of religion and former chair of the Department of Religion & Classics at the University of Rochester, previously translated a collection of al-Ba’uniyyah’s poems as Emanations of Grace, and likens her work to that of the famous Persian poet, Jalal al-Din Rumi.
It was five years ago that Cast Lead began. Now a book of short stories, Gaza Writes Back, marks the anniversary. The book’s editor, Refaat Alareer, answers questions about the collection.
The magazine The Common is publishing its first work of Arabic literature in translation in Issue 6, which is set to be released on October 28. We asked a few questions about the process of Jennifer Acker, the magazine’s founding editor and editor in chief, and of Hisham Bustani, whose work is featured in the magazine.
One of the Syrian novelist Haidar Haidar’s most important works — and certainly his most controversial — A Banquet for Seaweed — is nearing the end of a long translational journey with scholar-translator Allen Hibbard and poet-translator-publisher Osama Esber.
Last month, the United States’ National Endowment for the Arts announced that they had awarded 16 grants, worth $250,000, for translation projects, including a $25,000 grant for Mohammed Albakry and Rebekah Maggor to translate Tahrir Plays and Performance Texts from the Egyptian Revolution. AL wanted to know a little more about the project.
