Language: Arabic

One’s Own Desire: Arab Women Writers Speak for Themselves in We Wrote in Symbols

June 23, 2021  |  in Reviews  |  by Mariam Diefallah

This anthology provides a glimpse into a world that has been constantly made invisible or policed within systems of domestication and abuse.

We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers, edited by Selma Dabbagh, Saqi Books, 2021

As an Egyptian, Arab, and Muslim woman, love and lust have largely occupied two separate worlds in my life. While I yearned for the elusive idea of love in my youth and pursued it in relationships, I had also deeply internalized that it had to end in heartbreak; I believed that love, like many ideas, could never be fully comprehended. But lust was different. Lust was an action—an action to avoid and repress, because it leads to sex, and sex is dangerous. When I started reading We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers, I thought of my upbringing, of the two separate worlds I have built for love and lust, and the difficulties of reconciling them in my adult life. This anthology, edited by the British-Palestinian writer Selma Dabbagh and published by Saqi books, includes one hundred and one pieces by seventy-five different women from the Middle East and North Africa region, as well as from the diaspora. Most of the pieces are translated from Arabic, many are originally written in English, and the minority are translated from French.

In the book’s introduction, Dabbagh explains that translating works about love and lust is difficult, though we do not learn about the ways in which the various translations could have impacted the anthology. This is especially pertinent in the cases of translations from Arabic to English, which represent the majority of the works in the text; Arabic can be seen as a unifying language, but the subtleties and differences between the dialects dictate different cultural specificities and reflect a stark diversity in both place and community. In other words, unless the place of origin is clear, the readers lose a sense of place with the absence of dialect, and different geographies and contexts start feeling neutral.

In the introduction, Dabbagh contextualizes the largely overlooked history of erotic female writers in Arabic literature. Although names of ancient goddesses of love and fertility in the Arab region—such as Isis and Ishtar—are well known, the topic of female Arab sexuality still comes as a novelty for many. Similarly, despite the fame of certain Abbasid poets such as Abu Nawas, female poets in elite Abbasid literary salons are not famous, if known at all. This lack of awareness is further complicated by the total disappearance of women erotic writings during the fall of Andalusia in 1492; Dabbagh clarifies that women writing on love and lust faced a blackout for almost half a millennia, reappearing only in the late nineteenth century. By then, authors and novelists—like Zaynab Fawwaz—began challenging common misogynistic practices such as arranged marriages, and therein paved the way for many women Arab writers to discuss sexuality in various literary forms today. Ranging over three millennia, the long span this anthology covers is indicative of the two interests of my review: what lies beyond the celebratory—especially in relation to difficult and/or painful lust—and the limitations of the narrative linking love and lust as two sides of the same coin.  READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

June 11, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, Eva Wissting, and Jacqueline Leung

Catch up on the latest literary news from Palestine, Sweden, and Hong Kong!

This week, Gaza’s reading community reels from the devastating loss of a beloved bookstore, and Sweden debates a new library to promote freedom of expression. In Hong Kong, leading literary voices pay homage on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, even as the annual Victoria Park vigil was canceled due to coronavirus concerns. Tour the literary world without leaving home; Asymptote‘s editors-at-large will punch your passport.

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

When his mobile phone rang at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, May 18, Samir Mansour was not asleep anyway, as the bombardment of Gaza was still on. The caller, the Israeli military, was asking if Mansour was inside his bookshop and publishing house, as they “didn’t want to hurt” him. They hung up, and shortly after, their shells reduced what was once “happy and loving memories” to a pile of rubble.

The beloved local bookshop, which stood on the ground floor of a larger building, was one of the two blockaded Gaza Strip’s largest sellers of books. The other bookshop, owned by Shaban Aslim, was also destroyed by an airstrike the same week. Mr. Aslim spoke of the work he put into creating his store in an interview, saying “this was my dream that cost me so much.”

To Palestinians living in Gaza, the two bookstores played a key role as a center of intellectual ‎life, and their destruction represents the wider loss of culture in Gaza.‎ Mansour’s bookshop, located near several universities, ‎was also the unofficial home of several English-‎language book clubs, and printed and published works by local authors for the past twenty-one years. “Books are my life,” said Mansour, who would like to rebuild his store one day. Hopes are high that the bookstore will be rebuilt with donations after an online fundraiser was set up and managed by human rights lawyers.

A post to the bookshop’s Instagram page laments the loss of the sense of ‎community the store offered to people in Gaza. But not all stories are lost! Tareq Hajjaj’s piece in Middle East Eye gives a glimpse of fear and loathing in Gaza from before the latest war. The Palestine Book Award, now celebrating its tenth year, is publishing Writing Palestine, with Arabic and English texts, which “uniquely brings together revered names.” The Award’s list of winners honors and endorses the best written in English on Palestine. And do not miss M. Lynx Qualey’s list of seventeen new books by Palestinian writers worth reading. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: An Excerpt from Yassin Adnan’s Hot Maroc

June 8, 2021  |  in Translations  |  by Alexander E. Elinson

“When the poor population gets a mobile phone and surfs the kingdoms of electrons, they forget all about their misery.”

With an infectious blend of humor, satire, and biting social commentary, Yassin Adnan’s novel Hot Maroc gives readers a portrait of contemporary Morocco—and the city of Marrakech—told through the eyes of the hapless Rahhal Laâouina, a.k.a. the Squirrel. Painfully shy, not that bright, and not all that popular, Rahhal somehow imagines himself a hero. With a useless degree in ancient Arabic poetry, he finds his calling in the online world, where he discovers email, YouTube, Facebook, and the news site Hot Maroc. Enamored of the internet and the thrill of anonymity it allows, Rahhal opens the Atlas Cubs Cybercafe, where patrons mingle virtually with politicians, journalists, hackers, and trolls. However, Rahhal soon finds himself mired in the dark side of the online world—one of corruption, scandal, and deception. Longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017, Hot Maroc is a vital portrait of the challenges Moroccans, young and old, face today. Where press freedoms are tightly controlled by government authorities, where the police spy on, intimidate, and detain citizens with impunity, and where adherence to traditional cultural icons both anchors and stifles creative production, the online world provides an alternative for the young and voiceless. We are thrilled to partner with Syracuse University Press to present an excerpt of its debut in English.

The Atlas Cubs Cybercafe

The autumn winds blow over Marrakech’s gardens, parks, and trees as September draws to an end. The entrance exam period has passed and those of Rahhal’s and Hassaniya’s friends who passed the exams have enrolled in training schools for primary and secondary school teachers, while those who flunked have gone back to throw themselves into the embrace of a deadly emptiness. Students went on with their university lives, embarking upon another semester of lectures, discussion circles, and endless cafeteria fights, whereas those who failed were deprived even of the routine of attending classes. Hung out to dry like clothes on the line, blowing in the wind, a sense of worthlessness gnawing away at them. As for Rahhal, he found himself face-to-face with what Hassaniya had suggested. He had no other option. And he couldn’t have hoped for a better solution himself.

He stood ill at ease and submissive at the door of the principal’s office, and after Hassaniya asked if he could enter, Emad Qatifa himself rushed forward to welcome him.

“Please . . . please . . . Mr. . . . Mr. . . . Rahhal, right?”

“. . .”

“Please, come in.”

In a show of gratitude, Rahhal just nodded. He was nervous and flustered, unable to raise his eyes up to those of Emad, who seemed nice, while Hiyam, the actual principal of the school, remained sitting at her desk. She was totally indifferent. She didn’t stir in her chair at all. She was silently watching the scene with an expression that moved between severity and detachment.

The meeting ended quickly, quicker than Rahhal expected, and without him having said a single word. He found himself in the courtyard of the house that had been turned into a school, having gotten the job right then and there, but not yet understanding exactly what his job was, or what exactly the position entailed. The school had a teaching staff whose names, along with the details of the subjects they taught, were posted on an educational chart hanging to the right of the principal’s office, and Rahhal’s picture was not among them. The school had a doorman, who stood at the gate washing Hiyam’s car, watching over Hassaniya’s motorbike and the teachers’ bicycles, and selling single cigarettes to passers-by, so even this position was not available. What was left, then? It was clear that Rahhal would remain leaning up in the corner of the courtyard like a bench player on a soccer team. He would remain until things became clear. Watching the students come and go, making himself available to everyone: Emad Qatifa, the owner of the whole thing; his wife, Hiyam, the principal of the school; and her vice principal and private secretary, Hassaniya Bin Mymoune. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

June 4, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by David Boyd, MK Harb, and Vivian Szu-Chin Chih

The latest from Japan, Taiwan, and Lebanon!

As certain places are heating up with a flurry of events, others are remaining cautious and mindful. Still, the good thing about the page is that it remains steadfast, and our work remains something that we can always turn to, celebrate, and share in. This week, our editors are once again bringing you the latest in world literature news, with a new Japanese literary translation workshop centering on heritage speakers and people of colour, a newly virtual Taipei Literature Festival, and a new winner of the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award. 

MK Harb, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Lebanon

Poet and academic Iman Mersal has won the prestigious Sheikh Zayed Book Award! Her creative non-fiction work, In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat, is part journalistic excellence, part poetic elegy, all while maintaining the sensibility of writing in the life of a complex character. It traces chronicles the late Egyptian writer Enayat Al Zayat, her struggles with mental illness, and her tragic death in the 1960s.

What’s new in Arabic literature? Banipal Magazine’s Spring issue is out, and it’s dedicated to Jerusalem and the acclaimed Palestinian auteur, Mahmoud Shukair, who has penned over forty-five books and six television series. This comes at a time when the Arab literary scene has overwhelmingly expressed its solidarity with the Palestinian people. Also on the subject of Palestine—this spring, I interviewed Palestinian-French writer and researcher, Karim Kattan, over here at Asymptote where we discussed belonging, the craft of writing, and other curious things. Also, Palestinian-Chilean writer Lina Meruane has a new novel out; Nervous System, translated into English by Megan McDowell, deals with the daunting specter of writer’s block. Read a review of the acclaimed work right here on the Asymptote blog!

How about some Arab cabaret? Well-read academic and translator Raphael Cormack’s Midnight in Cairo: The Female Stars of Egypt’s Roaring 20’s is an engrossing retelling of vagabonds, feminists, and performers as they defied gender norms, transgressed class lines, and created iconic productions. Another beautiful and timely publication by Saqi Books is We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers. Edited by British-Palestinian writer, Selma Dabbagh, the anthology celebrates and examines the tradition of erotic writing in Arabic literature and its many women pioneers. Lastly, yours truly has a short story out with The Bombay Review, dealing with censorship and artificial intelligence. READ MORE…

The International Booker at the Border of Fiction: Who Will Win?

May 27, 2021  |  in Essays  |  by Barbara Halla

[T]his year’s shortlist . . . is explicitly focused with questions of archives, loss, and narration.

With the announcement of the Booker International 2021 winner around the corner and the shortlisted titles soon to top stacks of books to-be-read around the world, most of us are harboring an energetic curiosity as to the next work that will earn the notoriety and intrigue that such accolades bring. No matter one’s personal feelings around these awards, it’s difficult to deny that the dialogue around them often reveal something pertinent about our times, as well as the role of literature in them. In the following essay, Barbara Halla, our assistant editor and in-house Booker expert, reviews the texts on the shortlist and offers her prediction as to the next book to claim the title.

If there is such a thing as untranslatability, then the title of Adriana Cavarero’s Tu Che Mi Guardi, Tu Che Mi Racconti would be it. Paul A. Kottman has rendered it into Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood, a title accurate to its content, typical of academic texts published in English, but lacking the magic of the original. Italian scholar Alessia Ricciardi, however, has provided a more faithful rendition of: “You who look at me, you who tell my story.” This title is not merely a nod, but a full-on embrace of Caverero’s theory of the “narratable self.”

Repudiating the idea of autobiography as the expression of a single, independent will, Caverero—who was active in the Italian feminist and leftist scene in the 1970s—was much more interested in the way external relationships overwhelmingly influence our conception of ourselves and our identities. Her theory of narration is about democratizing the action of creation and self-understanding, demonstrating the reliance we have on the mirroring effects of other people, as well as how collaboration can result in a much fuller conception of the self. But I also think that there is another layer to the interplay between seeing and narrating, insofar as the act of seeing another involves in itself a narrative creation of sorts; every person is but a amalgam of the available fragments we have of them, and we make sense of their place in our lives through storytelling, just as we make sense of our own.

I have started this International Booker prediction with Cavarero because I have found that this year’s shortlist—nay, the entire longlist—is explicitly focused with questions of archives, loss, and narration: what is behind the impulse to write, especially about others, and those we have loved, but lost? Who gets to tell our stories? It is a shame that Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette—as one of the most interesting interjections on the narrative impulse—was cut after being first longlisted in March. The second portion of Minor Detail sees its Palestinian narrator becoming obsessed to the point of endangerment to discover the story that Shibli narrates in the first portion of the book: the rape and murder of a Bedouin girl, whose tragic fate coincides with the narrator’s birthday. This latter section of the book is compulsively driven by this “minor detail,” but there is no “logical explication” for what drives this obsession beyond the existence of the coincidence in itself. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Two Poems by Ameer Hamad

May 25, 2021  |  in Translations  |  by Katharine Halls

Rockets have broken the bones of our planets

This week, we feature two poems from the Palestinian writer Ameer Hamad, including “Prayer” which was written during the most recent bombardment of Gaza, an austere appeal for an end to the violence that has seen the Palestinians, killed by Israeli airstrikes, form the overwhelming majority of the death toll. These two poems translated by Katharine Halls are small enough to carry in one’s palm; they utilise a mode of poetic witness attuned to distillation, frankness, and the startling force of an ending. Even as the recent ceasefire has struck a note of fragile peace, we read Ameer Hamad’s unflinching poems as a reminder that a people’s freedom can only come at the end of dispossession.

Prayer

Lord with your cloth wipe the smoke from our mirrors
Extinguish the fire at our windows with your tears
We have no strength not to trust in your mercy
Rockets have broken the bones of our planets
Bombs have shattered the glass of our air
And the fragments lie heavy on our eyes
As we hold them out to you
That you may set them on the scales. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

May 7, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Andriana Hamas, Carol Khoury, and Jovanka Kalaba

The latest news from Bulgaria, Palestine, and Serbia!

This week our writers bring you the latest news from Bulgaria, Palestine, and Serbia. In Palestine, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award winners have been announced, including Iman Mersal taking the Literature Award; in Serbia, a new anthology of Miloš Crnjanski’s poetry has been translated into English; and in Bulgaria, a conference about Bulgarian Literature as world literature was held at the National Book Center. Read on to find out more! 

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

It is an unusually hot spring, Ramadan is in its last third, and the country has been under partial lockdown for a long time, which leaves no reason to wonder that the literary scene in Palestine is suffering from Frühjahrsmüdigkeit (aka springtime lethargy)! One cannot but wonder how people in hotter regions, such as in the United Arab Emirates, not only manage to get through with their days, but also make international literary news.

Seven authors and researchers, from Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and the US, as well as a publishing house from Lebanon, have been declared the winners of this year’s Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The winners were selected from a pool of more than 2,300 submissions, the most the annual award has received since it was founded in 2007. The awards will be formally presented via a livestream ceremony on Youtube during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair (23–29 May 2021).

This year’s Literature Award went to Iman Mersal for her 2019 work of creative nonfiction Fee Athar Enayat Al Zayyat (In the Footsteps of Enayat Al-Zayyat). This look into the life of the Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat, who killed herself in 1963, illuminates the challenges of writing while female, of attitudes toward mental health, and life in mid-20th-century Egypt. It is part detective story, part biography, and part memoir, and unfolds tender and surprising connections. It recently came out in Richard Jacquemond’s French translation as Sur les traces d’enayat Zayyat. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: An Excerpt from The Book of Travels by Ḥannā Diyāb

May 4, 2021  |  in Translations  |  by Elias Muhanna

Translated into English for the first time, meet the young Syrian responsible for some of the most beloved stories from the Thousand and One Nights

Introducing Anglophone readers to the young Syrian responsible for some of the most beloved stories from the Thousand and One Nights, The Book of Travels is Ḥannā Diyāb’s remarkable first-person account of his travels as a young man from his hometown of Aleppo to the court of Versailles and back again and we are thrilled to partner with Library of Arabic Literature and NYU Press to present an excerpt of its debut in English today. Diyāb, a Maronite Christian, served as a guide and interpreter for the French naturalist and antiquarian Paul Lucas. Between 1706 and 1716, Diyāb and Lucas traveled through Syria, Cyprus, Egypt, Tripolitania, Tunis, Italy, and France. In Paris, Ḥannā Diyāb met Antoine Galland, who added to his wildly popular translation of the Thousand and One Nights several tales related by Diyāb, including “Aladdin” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.” When Lucas failed to make good on his promise of a position for Diyāb at Louis XIV’s Royal Library, Diyāb returned to Aleppo. In his old age, he wrote this engaging account of his youthful adventures, from capture by pirates in the Mediterranean to quack medicine and near-death experiences. In the following excerpt, Diyāb recounts what happened when he arrived at the court of Versailles and met King Louis XIV for the first time.

As we approached the king’s palace, I could see that there was a vast open space before it, surrounded by an iron fence as tall as a man with his arm outstretched, and topped with points as sharp as spears. At the center was a gate that opened onto the space, flanked by tall soldiers carrying battle-axes and spears, and snarling like panthers. They allowed no one to pass except those they recognized to be known at court. When we approached the gate, the soldiers tried to turn us away, but my master gave them a password and they let us through.

We entered the square and walked across it to the gates of the king’s palace. There were soldiers there just like the ones we’d seen earlier, along with a seated chamberlain wearing an ornate uniform. He was a handsome man of dignified bearing, attended by a group of servants. When my master stepped forward and introduced himself, the man welcomed him in most cordially. We climbed a grand set of stone stairs, then headed to the pavilion of the minister known as Pontchartrain, who was minister for the Orient. We received permission to enter, and presented ourselves before His Excellency the minister, accompanied by the chamberlain.

My master bowed ceremoniously and announced that he’d returned safely to Paris from his voyage. He presented the minister with an inventory of the seven trunks’ worth of goods he had purchased for His Majesty the king during his travels. The minister read the inventory and repeated his greetings, congratulating my master on returning home safely despite all the frightful things he’d surely encountered during his voyage. I stood at some distance from the two men, holding the cage with the animals inside. The minister spotted me.

“Who’s that, and what’s he carrying?” he asked my master.

“This young man served as my dragoman during the voyage,” he replied. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

April 9, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury and Suhasini Patni

The latest news from Palestine and India!

This week, our writers bring you the latest news from Palestine and India. In Palestine, the literary community has mourned the passing of the great Palestinian poet Izz al-Din Manasirah, while Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail has been nominated for the 2021 International Man Booker; and in India, feminist poet Dr Anamika has won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award for Hindi poetry for her collection Tokri Mein Digant: Theri Gatha. Read on to find out more! 

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

“I will continue the culture of resistance until my departure, either to the grave or to Palestine.” These are the words of the Palestinian poet, thinker, critic, and academic Izz al-Din Manasirah, who passed away this week in Jordan (aged seventy-five) due to COVID-19. Remaining true to his words and beliefs, he led the kind of life in exile that associated his name with the Palestinian revolution and resistance, earning him the title of “The Revolution’s Poet.”

Manasirah was one of the most prominent poets of the 1960s generation, whose texts expressed the concerns of national liberation, in addition to his critical engagement with the global, Arab, and local literature. He contributed to the development of modern Arabic poetry and the development of methodologies of cultural criticism, and was often referred to as one of the pioneers of the modern poetic movement. The media experience that he presented through cultural programs in Jordan was an important cornerstone in uncovering many talents.

Holder of several literary and academic awards, he is nonetheless best known for his poems sung by Marcel Khalife and others, most famously “Jafra” and “In Green We Coffined Him.”

With the death of Izz al-Din Manasirah, Palestinian poetry bids farewell to the last of the Great Four (along with Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008), Samih al-Qasim (1939–2014), and Tawfiq Zayyad (1929–1994)).

Despite such saddening news, the Palestinian literary scene—a truly fertile one—has rather pleasing news to celebrate this week. Booker International organizers announced the 2021 longlist. Unsurprisingly, Adania Shibli’s Minor Detail, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette, was on the thirteen-book list. In their statement, the jury members praised the book saying: “The first part of this devastatingly powerful book gives a laconic account of a shocking crime. In the second, decades later, a woman sets out to comprehend that crime. Set in disputed ground, this austerely beautiful novel focuses on one incident in the Palestine/Israeli conflict and casts light on ethnic conflicts, and ethnic cleansing, everywhere.” Minor Detail was Asymptote’s choice for May 2020 Book Club. In “Textual Echoes,” Jaquette talks candidly about her translation.

Suhasini Patni, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India

Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters, announced its awards for outstanding literary merit for 2020 on March 12. The academy awarded its prizes in twenty languages, rather than the usual twenty-four with the awards for Malayalam, Nepali, Odia, and Rajasthani languages to be announced at a later date. READ MORE…

The 2021 International Booker Prize Longlist

April 8, 2021  |  in Essays  |  by Sarah Moore

As well as being notable for texts that cross geographical borders, the 2021 longlist features works crossing the boundaries of traditional genres

Last week, the judges of the International Booker Prize announced the 2021 longlist. The prestigious prize is always followed with great excitement by critics, writers, and readers of international literature, and is particularly pertinent to us here at Asymptote. This year’s eclectic list features eleven languages from twelve countries. While we await the announcement of the six-book shortlist on April 22, let this be your guide through the thirteen books on the longlist.

The announcement of the International Man Booker, which celebrates the finest translated fiction from around the world, is always a pivotal event in the year for those interested in world literature. This year’s judging panel, consisting of Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Aida Edemariam, Neel Mukherjee, Olivette Otele, and George Szirtes, has selected a longlist dominated by newcomers and focusing above all on migration.

A welcome inclusion on the 2021 longlist, which is (as always) extremely Eurocentric, is the renowned Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi. Written in Gikuyu, this is Ngũgĩ’s first attempt at the epic form and explores the theme of disability through the story of nine sisters journeying to find a magical cure for their youngest sibling, who cannot walk.

Ngũgĩ was previously nominated for the International Booker in 2009 but has made history with this second nomination by becoming the first writer to be nominated for the prize as both author and translator of the same book, and the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. Given that Ngũgĩ began his writing career in English before resolving to write works in his mother tongue (works for which he was detained by Kenya’s government), this nomination opens the way for much-needed conversations about literature in indigenous languages, as well as about the fascinating practice of self-translation. With the recent controversies surrounding translators of Amanda Gorman’s poetry collection The Hill We Climb, and questions of diversity and visibility of translators, Ngũgĩ’s self-translation adds a new angle to the debate about who gets to translate a text.

Chinese author Can Xue has also been previously nominated for the prize. In 2019, Xue was nominated for Love in the New Millennium, while this year’s nomination is for her first collection of stories, I Live in the Slums (translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping). READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: “Berliner Maqama, or The Hitchhiker from Heidelberg” by Haytham El-Wardany

March 30, 2021  |  in Translations  |  by Katharine Halls

The bald man didn’t talk much but he was a big smoker, and he kept rolling spliffs, one after another

The maqama is a trickster tale genre from the classical Arabic tradition. In the Maqamat of Badi’ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani—from whose ‘Maqama of the Blind’ the verses at the end of this text are taken—the itinerant narrator reports from towns and cities across the Middle East and Central Asia, encountering the mysterious rogue Abu al-Fath in a different guise each time. The challenge of evoking this intertextuality and the stylistic specifics of the maqama (which is traditionally written in rhymed prose, a feature that El-Wardany gently plays with here, and like premodern Arabic writing more generally, is not punctuated) offered the opportunity to experiment with visual presentation and stylistic eclecticism in the English translation.

—Katharine Halls, translator

Having travelled a great distance we stopped for a break, took refuge in a petrol station where we filled up the tank and emptied our bladders and stretched our stiff muscles until, refreshed, we got back in the car, determined to cover what distance remained  My wife took the wheel, it being her turn, and before she started the engine she said, Let us roll a spliff, which we did, but then as she turned the key to start the ignition a man appeared, I don’t know where from, bald and clean-shaven and wearing a jacket, and flagged us down, Are you going to Berlin? and we were, we said, so begging our kindness he asked for a lift        I looked at my wife and my wife looked at me, and then, decided, we looked back, Jump in—as long as you’re not a highwayman, God forbid, so he fetched two huge bags from the verge, loaded up, and sat down beside them and then we set off.

The air in the car took a turn for the cagey, for here we were all of a sudden with a stranger          We didn’t know who he was or where he was going, he just sat in the back seat not saying a word, and but for the eyes of the oncoming cars which flashed past like ghosts, it was silent and dark            Then when I glanced across at my wife, I saw she was lighting the spliff we’d just rolled, and it surprised me to see she’d decided to impose this habit of ours on the car as a whole, but no sooner had we taken a puff or two than our bald companion leant forward and plucked it from our hands, saying Man! What a friend for the road. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

March 26, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Jacqueline Leung, MK Harb, and Vivian Szu-Chin Chih

The latest news from Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Taiwan!

This week, our writers bring you news from Hong Kong, Lebanon, and Taiwan. In Hong Kong, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine is publishing a special section on Myanmar writing; in Lebanon, poet Zeina Hashem Beck’s second poetry collection will be published by Penguin; and in Taiwan, the 2021 Taipei Literary Festival has kicked off. Read on to find out more! 

Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong

In a show of solidarity to the resistance efforts in Myanmar, Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine is publishing an English-language section on Myanmar, to be edited by poet, writer, and academic Tammy Lai-Ming Ho. The magazine will accept submissions until March 30 and has already announced that it will include some works in translation. So far, Thiri Zune’s translation of Nay Thit’s “With the Teeth of a Mad Flower” and Ko Ko Thett’s translation of Aung Khin Myint’s poem “Spring” will be in the upcoming issue. Both are timely responses to the military coup which has killed well over 200 people, including poets Myint Myint Zin and K Za Win, and has caused countrywide Internet blackout and crackdowns on the media. While international condemnation of Myanmar’s military leaders is escalating, many in Hong Kong identify with the resistance from the onset, especially with the fresh memory of the city’s own protests.

In addition to its efforts for Myanmar, Voice & Verse held an event discussing the American poet Louise Glück, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, on World Poetry Day (March 21, 2021). Hosted by writer, poet, and critic Ian Pang in Cantonese, the event discussed Glück’s oeuvre, from her first poetry collection Firstborn (1968) to more recent works.

Works in translation also feature prominently in the forty-fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival, set to take place between April 1 and 12. With over 190 titles from fifty-eight countries and regions, the festival is proceeding in a hybrid format with in-theatre and online screenings as well as director discussions. This year’s showcase includes Wife of a Spy directed by Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades!, which recently won Best Director and the Special Jury Prize respectively at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival; Golden Globes Best Foreign Language Film winner, Minari, by Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung; and Japanese masterpieces in the event of Shokichu Cinema’s 100th anniversary. These already rich offerings are accompanied by a selection of newly restored classics from world and Chinese-language cinemas, recalling Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s Golden Globe statement, that once one overcomes the one-inch barrier of subtitles, one gains access to many more amazing films and works of art.

MK Harb, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Lebanon

2022. Since the start of the pandemic and the global vaccine roll out, a number of hopes, projects, and “return to normal” discourse have been thrown onto that year. However, here at Asymptote, we are excited to hear that acclaimed Lebanese Poet Zeina Hashem Beck will debut a poetry collection with Penguin Books in the summer of 2022! Titled O, the collection will be a meditative reflection on the letter O and its numerous meanings. Hashem Beck previously won the 2016 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize for her book Louder than Hearts.

March is usually a generous month to us and we will share this generosity through some exciting Arab literature reading lists! The Arab lit Quarterly Spring issue is out with exciting writings and translations on the theme of “Song.” Guest edited by investigative journalist Karim Zidan, this issue has a far-reaching range from tenth-century poetry by the polymath Kushajim (in translation by Salma Harland) to a journey through Palestinian resistance folk music with Shaimaa Abulebda. Another reading list we are excited about is the Sheikh Zayed Book Award shortlist! Dominated by women authors from the Arab world, the list includes authors from Egyptian Iman Mersal to Lebanese Alawiya Sobh. Happy reading!

In translation highlights, acclaimed Lebanese author Hoda Barakat’s novel, which won the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is out now with an English translation and a controversial title! Translated by another acclaimed translator, Marilyn Booth, the title of “Voices of the Lost” is seen by some as reductive to the devastating stories of migrants in the novel. Another work we are enamored with is the collection of short stories A Bed for the King’s Daughter written by Syrian author, Shahla Ujayli, whose past work was long listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The collection, translated by Sawad Hussain, with an important forward on biases in the literary market, uses surrealism and humor to address many of modernity’s malaises from alienation to the patriarchal gaze. READ MORE…

What’s New in Translation: March 2021

March 15, 2021  |  in New in Translation, Reviews  |  by Alice Banks, Carol Khoury, Maddy Robinson, and Rachel Farmer

The best in world literature from Iceland, Palestine, Algeria, and Japan!

This month, our selection of excellent new publications are representative of literature’s capacity for translating worldly phenomenon into language, converting the lived into the understood. From Iceland, a passionate and intimate call to response on the tragedies of environmental destruction; from Palestine, a monumental work of love and resistance from “the Virginia Woolf of Palestine,” Sahar Kalifeh; from Algeria, a sensual novel that treads the tenuous territory of colonialism’s aftereffects; and from Japan, the English-language debut of Akutagawa-winner Kikuko Tsumura, who with graceful humour and intrigue tackles the toxic concept of labour in the thrive of capitalism.  

on time and water

On Time and Water by Andri Snær Magnason, translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith, Open Letter, 2021

Review by Rachel Farmer, Chief Executive Assistant

When Greta Thunberg addressed the UN Climate Summit in September 2019, she choked back tears as she uttered the now infamous words: “How dare you?” Reactions to this display of emotion were mixed to say the least. Some showed discomfort, others concern for her wellbeing; some dismissed her outburst as manipulative, others ridiculed her. Her face and words were even immortalised in meme format. In displaying her anguish and rage so plainly, Thunberg violated the unspoken rule that seems to underpin much of the communication and discussion around climate change, wherein impassivity, stoicism, and detachment reign supreme.

In On Time and Water—part memoir, part interview, part impassioned treatise on the future of our planet—Andri Snær Magnason follows the young Swedish activist’s example, casting aside convention and delving into the emotional side of the climate crisis. In doing so, he embarks on a deeply humane and vulnerable exploration of what manmade climate change truly means for the planet—and for us. In this compelling hybrid of a book, translated sensitively by Lytton Smith, he explains how, a few years ago, he was called upon to defend a region in his country’s highlands from being destroyed in the name of energy production. Despite his deep admiration for the spiritual fervour with which Helgi Valtýsson, another Icelandic writer, wrote about the region in 1945, Magnason found himself unable to infuse the same passion into his defence. Bringing emotions into the discussion would have risked his arguments being dismissed as hysterical, doommongering, or hopelessly idealistic.

I’d found myself overwhelmed by melancholy at the unruly devastation that washed out this peerless region, yet I chose words that seemed moderate and inviting to readers. I used the prevailing language of liberalism, innovation, utilitarianism, and marketing. I discussed the area’s importance for Iceland’s image, its potential tourist income, the area’s research value, how the highlands were a magnet for foreign currency as a filming location for movies or commercials. [. . .] We live in times when money is the measure of reality. I couldn’t argue nature’s right to exist, its essential value, by saying that we might find God’s all-encompassing expanse there. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

February 26, 2021  |  in Dispatches, News, Weekly Roundup  |  by Carol Khoury, Jacqueline Leung, and Kwan Ann Tan

The latest news from Palestine, Hong Kong, and Malaysia!

This week, our writers bring you news from Palestine, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. In Palestine, the world has been remembering the renowned writer Mourid Barghouti, who passed away this month; in Hong Kong, Dorothy Tse’s first novel to appear in English, Owlish, will be released by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Graywolf Press; and in Malaysia, two new anthologies celebrate Malaysian writing. Read on to find out more! 

Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine

If it weren’t for COVID-19, the narrow streets of Deir Ghassana would have been jammed with mourners on Valentine’s day. Just like many other villages around the world, Deir Ghassana—the small serene village to the north of Ramallah in the central hills of Palestine— usually celebrates Valentine’s day, but not this year: for Mourid Barghouti passed away.

Born on a hot day in July 1944 in one of the village’s old houses, Barghouti grew to become a beloved Palestinian poet, performer, public speaker, and memoirist, albeit living most of his life in exile. He wrote the popular memoir I Saw Ramallah, which chronicled his return to the West Bank in 1996 and was translated by novelist Ahdaf Soueif. He also wrote a follow-up memoir, I Was Born There, I Was Born Here, which tells his story from 1998 to 2010, translated by Humphrey Davies. He published more than a dozen collections of poems, and a collection of his work, Midnight and Other Poems, was translated by his life partner, the great Egyptian novelist Radwa Ashour (1946–2014).

In his foreword to the English version of I Saw Ramallah, Edward Said wrote of Barghouti’s treatment of loss experienced in exile that, “it is Barghouti’s extended rebuttal and resistance against the reasons for that loss that endows his poetry with substance and gives this narrative its positive valence.” The loss of such a writer is great, but Barghouti will always be remembered. His legacy is extremely rich, not only because he was one of the most articulate defenders of the Palestinian cause, but because his writing has encapsulated the collective agony and sumoud (steadfastness) of the Palestinian people everywhere.

In his memoir, Mourid writes about the loss of his private days—his birthday and his anniversary—as author Ghassan Kanafani was assassinated on the date of the first, and cartoonist Naji al-Ali on the second. It seems life is only determined to keep the legacy alive. Sadly for Mourid and Radwa’s only son, the poet Tamim Barghouti (b. 1977), February 14 will be a different celebration from now on.

To get a taste of his writings, a collection of his translated works is published on ArabLit and a wide-ranging interview by Maya Jaggi, published in The Guardian (2008). READ MORE…