Read: Translation in Practice

Thanks to Words Without Borders for flagging up this new book from Dalkey Archive Press. Based on a British Council symposium, translator Gill Paul gathered contributions from leading translators, including PEN members Ros Schwartz and Amanda Hopkinson, to present the most coherent and comprehensive guide to the pragmatics of translation.

August Issue of WWB: Andre Naffis on literary competition in the UAE

Who can resist an article entitled Poets, Eunuchs and Pricks? A mordant commentary on the biggerbetterfastermore ethos of the Emirates, Andre Naffis' essay looks at the way in which literary prestige has got mixed up in the rapidly developing skyline, with a planned statue celebrating al-Hakawati (the storyteller).

In a characteristically outlandish twist, the Sheikhs have now decided to set their mores on sexuality down in stone by commissioning a gargantuan eunuch—which is to lord over Dubai’s Zabeel Park, fifty hectares smack in the middle of what is now some of the world’s most valuable real estate. At over one hundred and fifty feet, the statue of Al-Hakawati “the storyteller” would relegate Rhodes’ Colossus to an also-ran.

In Abu Dhabi on the other hand, it's all about live entertainment,

in what is arguably a ploy by Abu Dhabi’s reigning Nahyan clan to style themselves after the Medicis and establish their city as the artistic counterweight to Dubai’s financial hub. The audiovisual jewel in their tiara is “The Prince of Poets”—a contest held at the Al Raha Beach Theatre on the outskirts of the island emirate. Run along the lines of “American Idol,” thousands of applications are processed until a select thirty-five poets compete in the broadcasts which unfold over the course of ten weeks.

As for the Medicis, this patronage of art has inspired some heated exchanges in Arab literary community and blogosphere, and casts a revealing light on the sociocultural makeup of the Emirates.

Take the first season when there were claims that the judges, hoping to foster a sense of national pride, awarded first prize to the Emarati Maatouk, while the far more popular Palestinian Barghouti came in fifth. Barghouti, whose father, Mourid is the author of I Saw Ramallah, could no doubt take solace in the not inconsiderable cheque ($27,000) and in that he walked away with that much sought-after accolade, the modern poet’s wreath, which he was accorded when his poem “Jerusalem” was immortalized with a cell-phone ring-tone. Nevertheless, the mini-scandal drew attention to the deep seated divisions between local and foreign Arabs. Palestinians and other Arabs constitute a second tier to privileged Emaratis.

What does this all amount to for poetry? Naffis links the ambitious scale and political capital of both projects to

the deep-seated ambivalence the Arab world displays when the ‘word’ intermingles with Islam’s current conservatism. Poetry is often dubbed sihr halal, “legal magic,” which, aside from the peculiar phrasing—one that would be unthinkable in other contexts as the average Arab has an understanding of magic not too dissimilar from that of Salem’s witch-hunters circa1692—points to a marked difference between East and West.

Yet

Mahmoud Darwish, Nizar Qabbani and Adonis, that perennial Nobel contender, were and have been known to fill stadiums with record audiences.

What Naffis doesn't add is that all three poets have also been thorns in the side of governments as well as popular figures. When state-sanctioned, can poetry continue to be the Arab world's rock and roll?

Literature Without Borders

A few news items on the free movement and translation of literature across borders:

Iraqi novelist Fadhil al-Azzawi's novel The Last of the Angels is published has been translation by The Free Press [US], and the first review is out in the Quarterly Conversation.

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Knesset Member Yuli Tamir has proposed a draft bill that would challenge the Israeli embargo on books published in Syria or Lebanon, making books in Arabic more available in Israel. Yuval Azoulay's article in Ha'aretz looks at the challenges facing readers coming through Israeli customs or looking to obtain books in Israel, with an update on the campaign against the embargo launched by Adalah, as the Atlas reported in February.

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Emirati newspaper The National offers a global overview of its summer reading recommendations with a nifty hotspotted map. Recs include Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game and Bahaa Taher's Sunset Oasis. Chad at Three Percent suggests turning this format into a social networking app like Cities I've Visited on Facebook...

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And Three Percent also put up this short video of the Big Think's interview with Alane Salierno Mason, founder of the brilliant Words Without Borders, discussing literature in translation. In other videos (the Big Think seems to work on one idea per short film), Alane discusses the continuing fortunes of publishers of translation, the guiding impulse for WWB and her thoughts on the power of Oprah.

Literature of Immigration

FLYP, an American magazine with a rare internationalist outlook, has an online discussion, organised by Words Without Borders, on the Literature of Immigration, including this interview with Algerian-born novelist Amara Lakhous, who now lives and writes in Italy. Lakhous describes the opportunities presented by immigrant literature in terms of a broadening of the world, and as a commonality: "I think immigrants or the experience of being an immigrant is the kind of experience that touches humanity, that touches all of us in one way or another.”

Season's Listings & Winter Treats

If you're still mulling over gifts for friends and family (or, like me, building up a pile of your own reading to keep the winter from the door), there are many lists out there to help you -- perhaps none as idiosyncratic, considered and exciting as Three Percent's Best Translated Book of 2008. The shortlist of 25 includes one Arabic title, Yalo by Elias Khoury. They're posting daily reviews of the titles, with the winner to be revealed on Jan 26.

They're also developing databases of all the translations published in the US in 2008 (and 2009): check them out for reading recommendations, and email chad [dot] post [at] rochester [dot] edu if you're a publisher or translator and have books to add.

Words Without Borders staff make their picks (all works in translation), appealingly, around the "fireplace with our mugs of hot toddy", and the list glows with that spirit. Equally thoughtful, although reading more as if conceived during pedeconferences along the corridors of power, the Slate best of 2008.

Ian Irvine at the New Statesman begins his list with the assertion that: "As English has increasingly become the world's default language, more and more non-traditional and non-anglophone areas of experience have begun to find expression in the English novel." His first two titles defy that claim, in some sense, taking the default language and hybridising, blending and turning English inside out, into what Evelyn Ch'ien calls "weird English."

Either way, it gets Irvine out of listing -- or reading? -- anything in translation. But this may be "house style" as in the same issue, Jonathan Derbyshire sets out the "Rise of the new Anglo-world order," in which he claims for the "Anglosphere" (English-speaking countries, and English speakers in former British colonies) the role that Goethe foresaw for German in his conception of "world literature." Derbyshire's argument is contradictory: on the one hand, English achieved dominance through empire, and so is English-language literature is enriched by writers and speakers of multiple, changing Englishes (with Salman Rushdie, as ever, as the case in point); on the other, English is globally dominant and therefore everyone, not only former colonial subjects, has to use English to be heard. Given that, as Derbyshire points out, Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish are equally *numerically* dominant (along with French and Turkish), the missing connection, of course, is the power of the marketplace, and English as the language of economic, as well as cultural, globalisation.

Which is somewhere more political than I intended to arrive in this seasonal round-up -- although I did also want to flag up the case of Omid Reza Mirsyafi, an Iranian blogger jailed (the thirtieth blogger so far) for 2 1/2 years. If you can find time (away from reading? shock!), then Amnesty's Greeting Cards campaign makes it easy to send messages of support online to human rights organisations around the world. And if you still have room on your reading list, there a new online issue of Transcript with a focus on Turkish literature.

Events, Awards, etc.: What's Going On...

Top sellers from the first week of the 52nd Beirut Book Fair, as reported in Lebanon's Daily Star, according to preliminary statistics from the Arab Cultural Club:

Islam and religion: "Umdat al-Raghib," Al-Shaykh Abdullah al-Hirari

Politics: "From Hasan Nasrallah to Michel Aoun," Fayez Qazzi

Science: "Encyclopedia of Family Health," Dar al-Ilm al-Malayin

Art: "International Cooking Series," Dar al-Ilm al-Malayin

Autobiography: "Jass al-Nabad (Taking the Pulse)," Riad al-Rayyes Publishing

The fair is back in business after a two-year hiatus, due to political and security tensions in Lebanon. With an emphasis on younger readers, and reading in education,

Beirut is attempting to reclaim its status as the "international book capital."

210 exhibitors are taking part, with 192 private and 18 government exhibitors are on hand from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Palestine and Oman and Lebanon. There is a week-long series of more than 40 seminars and lectures by publishers and prominent figures from the Arab publishing and literature scene.

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Words Without Borders posts two exciting ventures: 2009 Fellowships in Applied Translation with Dalkey Archive Press (application deadline 1 March, 2009); and Amazon UK have launched a Literature in Translation store.

Hot Off the Press: Banipal, Words Without Borders, Three Percent

The start of the month means new magazines, new writers and pieces to discover...

Banipal 33 opens with a major 70-page feature on the life and legacy of Mahmoud Darwish. It includes articles, tributes, poems and many photographs of the great Palestinian and world poet, who passed away on Saturday 9 August following complications after major heart surgery in Houston, Texas, at the age of 67. It also includes part 3 of a series on contemporary Syrian literature, including work by Adonis, Fawaz Haddad, Hussein Bin Hamza, Gladys Matar, Khalil al-Neimi, and Ibrahim Samuel.

Words Without Borders December 2008 has an impressive line-up of writers from around the world meditating on The Home Front. All the stories are available online, and you can catch up with forum discussions about classic Yalo by Elias Khoury and about the brand-new Clash of Civilisations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous.

Chad Post at Three Percent is gearing up for his Translations of the Year list with a tantalising catalogue of the ones that almost made it. He also flags up a great US-based magazine for writing in translation: Two Lines (from the Center for the Art of Translation), whose August 2008 issue Strange Harbors featured a focus on Turkish poetry.

Girls of Riyadh Go to Dublin & Samir El-Youssef in Belgium

Susannah Tarbush reports in the Saudi Gazette that Rajaa Alsanea's The Girls of Riyadh has been longlisted for the Dublin/IMPAC award for fiction, which was won last year by Canadian-based Lebanese writer Rawi Hage's YA novel De Niro's Game. Tarbush notes that, along with Alaa Al-Aswany, Alsanea and Hage

have broken through into the Western literary mainstream, which has been a stimulus for Arab literature. Publishers are increasingly interested in publishing translations of Arabic writing, and are on the lookout for new Arab authors who may have mass readership appeal.

She also flags up Saqi's publication of David Tresilian's A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature; her discussion of the book suggests some of the tensions between the EuroWestern emphasis on mass market popular publishing and the current practice and status of literature in the Arabic world, according to Tresilian, who sees:

three main trends on the contemporary Arab literary scene: a weariness with politics, a growth in the number of women writers, and a related emphasis on individual experience at the expense of larger public themes. A further development has been regional writing, as exemplified by Nubian writers and by the Libyan Ibrahim al-Koni whose novels are set among the Tuareg people.

Recently there has been a turning away from European literary models and towards elements from the pre-modern literary heritage and from the oral and popular culture. But ominously there has also been a growing intolerance of literary expression generally, “which has made what was always perhaps a minority activity into one that is now that of a sometimes embattled minority.”

Alsanea's novel, however, points to a fourth trend that mediates between what Tresilian perceives as a turning away from literature as popular expression: as a novel based on, and presented like, an email listserv, Girls of Riyadh is one of a growing number of novels (like Being Abbas El-Abd and The Poison Tree that use the popularity of new media communications as a form and forum for fiction, resulting in popular - and in all three cases, taboo- and genre-busting - novels with both regional and international presence.

Evidence: the IMPAC nomination for Alsanea's novel came, according to Tarbush, from a librarian in Warsaw.

And Tarbush is spot-on in drawing attention to the raised international profile of Arabic literature, although some authors pursue a different tack from Alsanea's gossipy, technologically-astute take on Sex and the City, which explores gendered double standards of life in Saudi Arabia, but also implies a gradual change (seconded, as the NYT reports, by the appearance of the first female Saudi rock band, The Accolade). Over at Words Without Borders, Arnon Grunberg catches London-based Lebanese author Samir El-Youssef in a humorous mood in Antwerp. El-Youssef's second novel A Treaty of Love is bleakly romantic, but in Antwerp he proves adept at turning his mordant view of life to stand-up (or rather, sit-down comedy).

Storytellers & their titles

Novelist/translator/blogger Randa Jarrar has a generous and perspicacious review of The Hakawati for this month's issue of Words Without Borders, in the spirit of this generous and lovely novel by US-based Lebanese writer Rabih Alameddine. And it makes a point that I haven't seen elsewhere and that has set me thinking:

I was struck initially by the book’s title, the Arabic word for “storyteller.” It seems to be the first time a novel has come out from a major press [in the US] with an Arabic title

True? False? Definitely worth noting. Any thoughts on novels with Arabic titles from major English-language presses? The one that springs to my mind is Minaret (derived from manara, lighthouse) by Leila Aboulela, published in the UK by Bloomsbury...

Nobel Odds & "the big dialogue of literature"

Ladbroke's have Syrian poet Adonis, a stalwart Nobel contender, at 4/1 (second shortest odds) and Algerian novelist Assia Djebar at 25/1. (Words Without Borders offer links to English translations from the "usual suspects"). No mention of Mahmoud Darwish but I hope that he is under discussion in the Secret Nobel HQ in Sweden, for his contribution to Peace as well as Literature. Were I a betting person, I would have a perverse and quixotic flutter on mind-bending Danish poet Inger Christensen, whose It is one of my finds of the year. And a differently perverse flutter (at 150/1) on Bob Dylan.

Nobel committee permanent chair Horace Engdahl said in an interview today that he Nobel committee sees US literature as "too insular." In Particular:

"They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."

While publishers and editors have rushed to defend the wide scope of US literature and the many generations of immigrant writers who have contributed to it, but so far have made no riposte to the challenge on translation. Three Percent, a US blogger who agrees with Engdahl's assessment, noted back in February that, although there's some conflicting information out there, the statistics on original translations of fiction and poetry from languages other than English in the US are pretty weak, hovering at around 3% of all books published, hence the title of the blog.

The UK doesn't rate much better, and when it comes to the breadth of contemporary Arabic literature, according to a 2007 conference paper on Maghrebi fiction in English (download PDF here),

Salih Altoma notes that of the 322 translations of works of fiction from Arabic into English since the end of the Second World War, nearly two-thirds have been published since 1988... Furthermore, works selected fortranslation from the Arabic are overwhelmingly by Egyptian writers (170 out of the 322 recorded by Altoma).

As Pickford continues, the landscape is changing slowly:

a few dedicated publishers – principally Quartet, Saqi, University of Texas Press, and AUC Press – have an ongoing commitment to building up a collection of Arabic-language literature… a number of the publishers are based in the Arab world itself. This reflects a laudable effort on the part of local publishers, who recognise that if their counterparts in the West do not show an interest, it is up to them to challenge this cultural marginalisation and seek out a Western readership.

Initiatives such as the British Council's New Arabic Books and the PEN Atlas hope to change things further still, so the rate of translation for Maghrebi books is more that one every 2.5 years. Assia Djebar's name on the Nobel odds list from Ladbrokes is a positive sign - and a challenge to explore the region's writers further.

Sherko Fatah

Sherko Fatah, an Iraqi Kurd who was born in the GDR and currently lives in Germany, has been nominated for the 2008 German Book Prize. Fatah has published three novels in German, including Im Grenzland (At the Borderline) -- Words Without Borders published an extract online, translated into English by Andrea Heyde. Qantara.de has a compelling review of the nominated new novel, Das dunkle Schiff (The Dark Ship), which tells the story of a reluctant jihadist who flees from Iraq to Germany. None of Fatah's novels have been published in English yet -- perhaps a win in the German Book Prize will lead a publisher to his work?