“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.”
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Alexander Key: On Domesticating Al-Jurjani 110%
“I’m trying to translate al-Jurjani so that he sounds like a literary critic writing in English, writing in his native language. I don’t want the reader of al-Jurjani’s experience with metaphor to think this guy is foreign – because al-Jurjani didn’t think he was foreign.”
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Yasmine Seale to Translate Al-Khansa for LAL Series
The poetry of Al-Khansa (~575-646) has been little-translated, although notably it appeared in the slender and beautiful chapbook of reflections Loss Sings, by author and translator James Montgomery, one of the executive editors of the Library of Arabic Literature project.
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.”
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Enass Khansa and Bilal Orfali on Editing a Series of Classical Arabic Texts for Young Readers
“Something that I was aware of growing up in Syria, but more now that I’m in Lebanon, is that classical Arabic literature is associated with many things, but it’s not associated with being a space for creative and experimental thinking. So I think the main idea for both of us with this is experimental.”
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Al-Yūsī’s Discourses: Situating a Sufi Scholar in a Vivid 17th-Century Morocco
“It’s not quite the same as a purely autobiographical text, but it’s almost more interesting for that. They’re more like mini-essays. I do think that the work, for that reason, can be read by people who aren’t interested in seventeenth-century Morocco.”
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New: Library of Arabic Literature Podcast Channel
Current discussions include talks with Bilal Orfali on wise fools, Maurice Pomerantz on the magic of words, and Marcel Kurpershoek on Nabati and classical poetries.
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‘Antarah’s ‘War Songs’ Makes NTA Longlist
This is the second Library of Arabic Literature title to make an NTA longlist.
Read moreTeaching with Arabic Literature in Translation: Classical Texts That ‘Capture a Sense of Marvel, Wonder, Humor, And, Above All, Adventure’
“Firstly, these are fun texts that capture a sense of marvel, wonder, humor, and, above all, adventure. In a university setting, both of these texts get at a fundamental human problem that I enjoy highlighting: How does one write about and represent cultures and peoples other than one’s own? What pitfalls await even a sympathetic observer?”
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