No Frontiers? Free Speech and the Internet conference

Describing itself as

A conference for bloggers, policy makers, human rights activists, internet moguls, educationalists, and parents

, this three-day event (no horse-riding, though) kicks off tomorrow at Cumberland Lodge conference centre in Surrey, UK. It's presented in association with the 21st Century Trust and English PEN and has a sterling line-up of speakers, including pioneering online journalist Isobel Hilton, Index on Censorship editor Jo Glanville, and Guardian Readers' Editor Siobhan Butterworth. As well as discussions and presentations, there are opportunities for in-depth conversations at meals -- or while walking in Windsor Great Park.

2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction announced

Thanks to Three Percent for the tip-off about this prize. And the longlist:

16 books (not widely available in UAE bookstores, according to The Nation) were chosen from 121 eligible entries.

Of these, only two of the authors (ibrahims Al-Koni and Nasrallah) have had book-length works translated into English. Several others - Ali Bader, Inaam Kachachi, Rabih Jaber, Habib Selmi - have had stories, excerpts and poems translated into English in Banipal magazine (back issues available). Bookbrunch (who also helpfully lists the Arabic publishers of all the titles) notes that

the 2008 winner, Sunset Oasis by Bahaa Taher, is being translated into English (with funding by Sigrid Rausing) by Humphrey Davies, and will be published by Sceptre in summer 2009.

The Bottle and the Genie, Mohammad Abu Maatouk
The Tobacco Guard, Ali Badr (review here)
Hunger, Mohammad Al Bsati
The Unfaithful Translator, Fawaz Haddad
The Man From Andalucia, Salem Hameesh
Prayer For The Family, Renée Hayek
Confessions, Rabih Jaber
Platoon Of Ruin, Abdel Kareem Jouaitly
The American Granddaughter, Inaam Kachachi
The Tumour, Ibrahim Al Koni
Black Taste, Black Odour, Ali Al Muqri
Time Of White Horses, Ibrahim Nasrallah
The Scents Of Marie-Claire, Al Habib Salmi
Intensive Care, Izzedin Shukri
Ma’ Al Sama’, Yehya Yekhlef
Beelzebub, Yussef Zeydan

The winner will be announced at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair on March 6, 2009.

Poetry in Translation: An Event, a Boxset, and Essential Information for Literary Translators

Exiled Writers Ink, a London-based group that "aims to facilitate the wider dissemination of work by writers in exile and to ensure they have a platform…to give a high profile to translators who enable the work of exiled writers to become accessible… and to develop literary creativity in the broadest sense within the refugee communities" will be focusing on the Near East for the December installation of their monthly Poetry Café salon. The Near East: Jew and Kurd brings together musicians and writers, including Moris Farhi (a former chair of English PEN's Writers in Prison Committee), Nazand Begikhani, and Kamal Mirawdeli. And there are open-mic slots after the featured performers, so dust off your poems and join in!

The Poetry Translation Centre is celebrating its amazing 2008 World Poetry tour with an innovative boxset of ten dual-language chapbooks, collecting work by the poets from the tour with facing-page translations by leading British poets collaborating with translators. The boxset can be ordered by emailing the Centre, and each chapbook is available singly from co-publishers Enitharmon, whose extensive catalogue of poetry is both lyrical and beautiful.



Fantastic sample poems are appearing on the Centre's homepage. It being autumn in London, I'm particularly drawn to this one, "Small Fox," by Sudanese poet Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, translated by Sabry Hafez and Sarah Maguire:

Suddenly - a small fox, playful,
floods your wounded heart with joy
He searches your face with his singular gaze,
knows you're at one with his vagabond stance

That very night I longed for you,
I missed your exquisite arousal,
I yearned for the moon that knew our names
That shattered glass forgotten,
the skittish squirrel gone -
leaving us everything: night, and wine

And as for me - I am drunk with thirst,
I am shaking with desire for you -
but here there's not a fox to be found.

The site also hosts the poem in Arabic, audio recordings in Arabic and English, and more poems by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi. It also lets you trace the translation process, with a literal version of each poem and the 'worked-up' version by the poet collaborating with the translator. If you're interested in translating poetry, the site has a wealth of material, including recordings of lectures and workshops.

English PEN has been running a Writers in Translation program for several years, and the committee are frequently asked for information on becoming a literary translator (primarily fiction and non-fiction), presses who publish translation, and how to approach them. Here, we're making their tried-and-tested guidelines public for the first time. The Literature Department of the Arts Council of England also have a very useful and detailed list of UK publishers who publish work in translation. So if this blog has inspired you to bring the work of a favourite author into English publication, these are the tools you need!

Two from the Saloon on Contemporary Arabic Literature

The Literary Saloon has two -- perhaps contradictory -- offerings: an op-ed from UAE's The National bemoaning the lack of a coherent "culture of reading" in the Middle East, pointing out that top-down efforts are not connecting to actual readers:

The Emirates Foundation has launched the International Prize for Arabic Fiction as a way for Arab writers and Arab literature to gain exposure. But as The National on Saturday reported, most of the 16 titles nominated for the award cannot be found in Abu Dhabi bookshops.

But they've also put up a review of David Tresilian's very handy A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature, which focuses on fiction where

the contemporary scene now offers almost too much to choose from [...] Tresilian's discussion of works such as Miral al-Tahawy's Blue Aubergine and Ahmed Alaidy's Being Abbas el Abd, as well as Alaa Al Aswany (The Yacoubian Building, Chicago) brings things up to date fairly well.

It's true, as the Tresilian review points out, that

prose narratives, more or less modeled on the Western novel, … tend to get translated and attract the most attention among English-speaking readers

but the international outpouring of love and grief after the death of Mahmoud Darwish suggests some recognition of the traditional depth and ongoing significance and brilliance of poetry as a communitarian, national, personal, and political arena across the Arabic-speaking world.

A Map of Love: Book Club and Author Event

The Guardian Book Club takes on Ahdaf Soueif's wonderful, award-winning novel over the next four weeks, with essay one, on languages in the novel, appearing today. The Book Club's chair, John Mullan, will host an event with Soueif on November 25th at the Guardian Newsroom in London: tickets available from book [dot] club [at] guardian [dot] co [dot] uk, or on 020 7886 9281.

The PEN Atlas is looking to start an online book club -- nominate your choice of titles here!

PEN Atlas on the tanjara

Journalist Susannah Tarbush, who blogs at the tanjara, gives a shout-out to the Atlas on her blog, saying that

the site clearly has the makings of a valuable online community and resource base on Arab literature

and the blog

is gathering momentum as a useful source of news, views and links relating to Arab literature.

Chicago's King of the Castle

The Complete Review have just put up a piece on Cell Block Five (although the Arabic title is The Fifth Castle - a Philip K. Dick reference?), a Kafka-esque prison novel first published in English this year by Arabia. It's a novel by the distinguished Iraqi novelist Fadhil al-Azzawi, a member of the controversial 'Kirkuk Group' of radical poets in the 1960s, and founder of Shi'r poetry magazine. He left Iraq in the 1970s (shortly after writing the novel) and has since lived in Germany. A novel about a neutral, unbreakable hero who finds himself trapped in the labyrinthine twists of Iraqi politics, it sounds like potential bedside reading for President-Elect Barack Obama.

And for a strong sense of the contemporary urban Middle East, he could delve into Al-Ahram's round-up of novels about contemporary Cairo. He may, of course, be familiar with the most recent -- Alaa al-Aswany's Chicago, named for the city where Obama began his political career and where he accepted the presidency last night. A lucky co-incidence, maybe, but we hope it's one that bodes well for the future of Arab-American relations.