Egyptian writer Muhammad Aladdin’s short story “Season of Migration to Arkadia” (tr. Humphrey Davies) is available as a free e-book from publisher mikrotext.
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What Distinguished Humphrey Davies: Irreverent and Faithful Acts of Transcreation
“For us readers of Arabic that are thirsty for a more inclusive canon that has room for queers, peers, poors, boors, mamas and other sisters, Humphrey’s translations have been central in planting the idea that such a canon does exist and that our search will yield some exciting results, as his search so far has done.”
Read moreRemembering Humphrey Davies
“I do know what kind of writer I like – the marginal and contrarian, and those who deal with real life.”
Read moreCelebrating Humphrey: 10 Translations, 11 Interviews
Humphrey Davies produced many translations and gave many interviews on a wide range of work, medieval to contemporary, in his 24 years as a literary translator. These are a few of our favorites.
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Humphrey Davies and the ‘Tabloid Touch’ Demanded by Translating a 13th-century Charlatan
“He seems to me a truly in-between character – in between autodidact and man of letters, in between conman and upstanding citizen, in between chancer on the streets of Damascus and provincial court hanger-on in the provinces.”
Read moreHumphrey Davies and the ‘Tabloid Touch’ Demanded by Translating a 13th-century Charlatan
” In a world of where everyone from gormless mark to greedy king is ready to believe his dreams long before he believes his eyes, al-Jawbari keeps his beady gaze trained on the trickster’s hand, not his mouth.”
Read moreHumphrey Davies on Why ‘The Critical Case of K’ Isn’t ‘Your Woo-woo Cliché of Kafka’
“Humphrey Davies discusses how he came to the novel, why this isn’t your woo-woo cliché of Kafka, and how coronavirus came to appear in a novel published in 2017.”
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Friday Finds: Muhammad al-Tunisi’s 19th-c. Account of Darfur
“No manuscript copy of the work exists. Its earliest recension is a lithographic edition, in the hand of Nicolas Perron, the author’s institutional superior and student, published in Paris in 1850.”
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Humphrey Davies on ‘Representational Translation’ and the Uses of Urban Dictionary and Google Translate
“And I took these from the Urban Dictionary online.”
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