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 […]
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 […]
“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.”
“Nothing could be more befitting than Kushājim’s epigrammatic riddles.”
“Lion’s fangs glimmer / You smile in return, but / Here comes the ripper”
إذا رَأيْتَ نُيُوبَ اللّيْثِ بارِزَةً * فَلا تَظُنّنّ أنّ اللّيْثَ يَبْتَسِمُ
“I see people / getting beautiful / day after day / but just not you.
Like a kitten / you only mean anything / when you’re young /you know that’s true.”
“I saw everyone getting lovelier, day by day, / and you, becoming less so! / Like a cat that fetches a high price in its youth, / and which, when it ages, goes for cheap.”
“It’s heart-warming to see Sargon’s voice transmogrify in so many ways and across four languages.”
“The beginning, we choose. / But the end chooses us. / And there is no road but the road.”