AUGUST 25, 2023 — Arrowsmith Press has announced the finalists for its 2022 Derek Walcott Prize, which goes to a poetry collection published in English by a writer who is […]
“It is said that blue is an antidote to sexual excitation—and I was a raging bull then. It is also said that blue calms the nerves—and I was on the edge of madness, bad temper was my inheritance, my father was known for it.”
This month: four new translations of Arabic novels from Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq.
Fady Joudah has translated three new works by the vibrant Palestinian poet, short-story writer, and children’s-book author Ahlam Bsharat.
“I will look at your back / if you come down a little closer.”
“Maya’s poems are made of such dailiness, the extreme violence of a colonizing force punctuating days filled with humor and compassion and small failures and sweeping loves.”
This Symposium on Translation and the Making of Arab American Community will include a panel featuring Khaled Mattawa, Fady Joudah, and Dunya Mikhail as well as a reading by Dunya Mikhail.
“The female protagonist visits him in the mornings, / taps shyly on the window, sweeps the street with a glance. / (Did anyone see her?).”
“You will hear and taste her laughter and also yours. Because laughter is ‘the excess knowledge no one takes seriously,’ the cherished identity smuggled out of psychology and surveilled consciousness.”
