Yesterday on Twitter, poet-translator Yasmine Seale announced: “I’m thrilled to be translating Tawq al-Hamama, the great book on love from medieval Cordoba—a jewel of observation and a window on the intimate life of Muslim Spain—for @LibraryArabLit. It survives thanks to a single manuscript. It has many poems.”
Read moreListen: Maya Abu al-Hayyat’s ‘The Gap’
In celebration of Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth), Comma Press has shared author Maya Abu al-Hayyat reading her short story “The Gap” in the original Arabic as well as in Yasmine Seale’s English translation.
Read moreTranslating Al-Khansa: ‘Between the Scylla of Shrillness and Melodrama, and the Charybdis of Monotony and Cliché’
” It’s certainly my experience that the deeper one goes into the surface of a text, the stranger it becomes, and the more likely one is to find something fresh in translation.”
Read moreTranslation’s Agitated Mirror
“Perhaps each iteration of the poem is a supplicant, yearning for a connection with Ibn Arabi’s original. Or perhaps each one is a lover, longing to see itself in another. Perhaps they are both.”
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Yasmine Seale Wins 2022 PEN Grant to Translate al-Nabulsi
Translator and author Yasmine Seale has won a 2022 PEN America Literary Grant to support her translation of If You See Them Fall to Earth by Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi (1641-1731).
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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 moreSunday Submissions: Wales PEN Cymru Translation Challenge
Wales PEN Cymru is accepting submissions for their Translation Challenge until May 31.
Read moreChristmas-day Gift: 8 Poets Translated by Yasmine Seale, Online
It is the ArabLit tradition to share a curated list of poems on Christmas Day.
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Holiday Bulaq: ‘One Thousand and One Dreams’
Yasmine is at work on a fresh translation of the Thousand and One Nights, and she reads an excerpt from her work-in-progress during the episode.
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