If You’re in London: Debate the Future of Arabic-English Translation

A fairly small crowd — including translators Raphael Cohen, Humphrey Davies, Nariman Youssef, and translator/editor Neil Hewison — came to Cairo’s British Council HQ last September to debate the future of Arabic-English translation, and what we could do to better it.

This presentation and debate came on the heels of the release of a report, by Literature Across Frontiers’ Alexandra Buchler and translator/scholar Alice Guthrie, about Arabic-English translation in the UK from 1990-2010. (You can download a copy of the report here.) The report examines trends in Arabic-English  translation and features interviews with a number of professional translators.

The UK presentation and debate, set for Feb 2, will include a presentation by Guthrie and Buchler, as it did in Cairo. But it will also be followed by a panel debate and Q&A that will be chaired by translators Marilyn Booth (whose latest work is a translation of As Though She Were Sleeping, by Elias Khoury) and Peter Clark (who has recently worked with the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and edited the first Nadwa collection). 

Rabee Jaber’s ‘The Mehlis Report’ Signed by New Directions

Rabee Jaber’s The Mehlis Report has been signed on by New Directions and is currently scheduled for release in the spring of 2013.

Kareem James Abu-Zeid, who was runner-up for the Banipal Prize in 2010 for his translation of Tarek Eltayeb’s Cities Without Palms, will translate the book. Abu-Zeid said, in an email, “I’m excited to have a press with broader distribution, and also because this is the first time I’ve ever selected the novel/author I wanted to translate, approached the press with it, and had them accept.”

Abu-Zeid has had his eye on Jaber for a while. In a 2009 feature on Quarterly Conversation called “Translate This Book!“, Abu-Zeid had said, “The single Arab author I believe to be the most in need of translation is the Lebanese novelist Rabee Jaber, born in 1972. He has published a host of novels in Arabic, several of which have been translated into French, yet none of which have been translated into English. He captures the life and spirit of the city of Beirut in unforgettable ways.”

Now Abu-Zeid will have his chance to bring Jaber’s work into English. Although Jaber’s work has appeared in excerpts — in the Beirut39 collection and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) “book of excerpts” — no full-length translation has yet been published. And, even though he is not yet 40, Jaber has written seventeen novels, including two that have been IPAF shortlisted (2010 for Amreeka and 2012 for The Druze of Belgrade).

Abu-Zeid described the novel he’s begun to translate in an email:

…The Mehlis Report revolves around the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005, and charts the psychological effects of the series of explosions that rocked Beirut at this time.

The 2012 Cairo International Book Fair in Photos

Mary Mourad and the team at Ahram Online have been doing a fine job reporting on the opening of the 43rd annual Cairo International Book Fair (they even have a schedule of events). So, instead of another report, I thought I’d take you along on my first visit to the 2012 fair as I collected impressions.

And yes, ¡Viva la Revolución!

The entrance looked just like old times: Only the banner is different. Tickets are to the right, still just 1LE.

The area immediately inside looked very much like 2010.

Dar al Shorouk still has their prime spot right near the main entrance. (At the moment, it seems to be the only entrance.) In 2010, I was fighting for air and afraid my children might be crushed. This year, crowds were decent-sized near the entrance but not overwhelming by any stretch.

Searching for Hall 3. The boy in the orange sweater was not pleased by the fresh rubble. Father: "Oh, give me your hand, ya basha."

Is Every Translation Just a ‘Placeholder’?

Brueghel's Tower of Babel

In reading through the rich “Arabic double issue” of the journal Metamorphoses, guest-edited by Mohamed el-Sawi and Hassan & Nahla Khalil, I came across a re-translation of Dhu al-Nun Ayyub’s “A Pillar in the Tower of Babel” by Stephanie Fauver.

Fauver’s comments on the translation precede the story, and they spurred me to read her work with particular attention. This was because of two passages. First, Fauver asserts that a translation that “gives preference to the source language over the target language, and perhaps at the expense of a smooth reading experience, allows for peculiarities of the source to appear as stumbling blocks to casual reading and as pointers to the fact that a translation must be considered a place-holder, always pointing to the need to engage the original.”

5 Questions about the ‘Middle East / North African’ GoodReads Group

The “Middle East / North African” literature club is an active part of the global GoodReads community with some 400 members. I asked one of the founders & leaders of the group, who calls herself “Nile Daughter” online, a few questions about this online book group.

ArabLit: What was the motivation to start this group? Who were you hoping would join?

Nile Daughter: First of all, I did not create the group, it was there in Goodreads for two years before I joined it. It was started by an American in order to gather reads from “the Middle East – North Africa ” (MENA) by native authors, and that was the definition of the group from the beginning. She left the forum, and when I joined there were about 60 members (multiple nationalities). There were no activities at all except for exchanging of some book recommendations.

I thought that was a good sign; I mean, these are people who do not belong to our region who are interested in reading our literature, trying to hear us and to understand us. I contacted the administration of the forum asking for a new moderator of the group and they assigned me. So with the cooperation of my friends that I appreciate much, we created a moderation team and moved on. We are three moderators “NG, Marieke, and I”: two Egyptians and one American. Now the group is trying to cover Arabic literature, also Turkish and Iranian, we even reached central Asia zone partially in our way.

ArabLit: What sort of reader(s) would you want to join the group? What do you think participants have gotten out of the group?

ND: We have just started the second year running this group and we have four hundred members now. We have Americans , Europeans, and Arabs, and that is the formula we hoped for. It is a group where members with different cultural backgrounds can read, discuss, and interact. After several reads, it was amazing how many non-native members indicated not only that they did not know much about us (socially, culturally or politically) , but that most of what they already knew was biased or superficial to some point. Besides they also have enjoyed our literature, for example: I Saw Ramallah affected a lot of readers, The Yacoubian Building was a shock, and Cities of Salt had the highest following rates in the group.

We are hoping that more diversified members will interact in the group and talk. Two-sided discussions (sometimes opposite ones) proved to be very productive, and the group created a positive communication area which is rare to locate in general—just to find different individuals exchanging points of view while reading the Middle East. That is the main benefit our participants get in our group.

ArabLit: Why an online reading group vs. one that’s in person?

ND: We never discussed how it would be as “in person group.” We could have never reached this number of various members or being internationally featured group if it was not online.

A Brief History of the Cairo International Book Fair

Photo from @3am_Mina in late December. Tents going up for 2012 book fair.

Over at Ahram Online, Mary Mourad and Mohammed Saad have put together a short overview of the Cairo International Book Fair. I have added just a few items here and there.

1969: The first Cairo International Book Fair was held.

Early 1980s: This is when politics began to enter the fair, according to former culture minister Emad Abou-Ghazi (as reported on Ahram Online.) The followed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and the invitation of Israel to paricipate in the book fair.

1987: Israel excluded from the book fair, but demonstrations continued.

1980s and 1990s: Mubarak used the fair to promote and entrench his favored intellectual elites, according to Cairo University Professor Ahmed Zayed (from Ahram Online).

2000: Religious preacher Amr Khaled makes his first appearance at the fair.

2001: In May of 2000, at least 2,000 Islamists angrily protested Ibrahim Aslan‘s decision, as editor-in-chief of the Arab Horizons project, to re-print Haidar Haidar’s A Banquet for Seaweed. The government responded by firing a senior culture worker late that year, and, at the 2001 fair, journalists, filmmakers and writers protested that decision.

2003: Book-fair protests against the anticipated US invasion of Iraq.

2005: “On January 28 police arrested a number of activists at the Cairo International Book Fair and charged them with disseminating false propaganda against the government.” (International Freedom of Expression Exchange.)  A number of lectures were canceled, including those by regime critic Mohamed El-Sayed Said, and books, including those by poet Mahmoud Darwish, were banned.

Which Arabic Books (in English) Are Reviewed?

When I saw that Fadi Azzam’s Sarmada, trans. Adam Talib, had been reviewed recently in The National (“Heady stuff, but not for everyone“), I thought: Hunh. How did this book get so many reviews in the English-language press?

Well, perhaps it isn’t yet “so many.” When I tallied them up, I found: There was an early, mixed review in the London Review of Books that is not online. It was followed by reviews in The Metro (by Tina Jackson, four stars), The New Yorker Book Bench (by Alexia Nader: “Essential Reading of the Arab Spring“), and The Independent (by Robin Yassin-Kassab).

Who Should Save Egypt’s Archives?

Posted by Hussein Allam at "Save the Books."

By Hussein Omar

It has sometimes been claimed that, like human rights and democracy, the protection of Egypt’s cultural heritage cannot be left to the Egyptians. Corruption, poverty, and ignorance, Egypt’s critics maintain, pose a serious threat to the preservation of artefacts of “global importance”.

Egypt’s own Antiquities Council, of course, claims otherwise. Attempting to demonstrate its commitment to safeguarding “national heritage,” erstwhile director Zahi Hawas waged a mildly successful international campaign to repatriate what “rightly belongs” to Egypt. In one case, a mummy returned from Atlanta, Georgia was given a farcical state-funeral, serenaded by singing schoolchildren and marching military bagpipers. Hawas, obsessed with ancient showpieces like the bust of Nefertiti and the Rosetta stone, has long overlooked the theft of Egypt’s non-ancient heritage. Ottoman deeds and Khedivial records that have mysteriously appeared in both private and public collections in the Gulf, for example, fell entirely outside the remit of his campaign.

Appealing to the tastes of package tourists and neglecting the interest of ordinary Egyptians, the Antiquities Council has long scorned what cannot be displayed in expensive vitrines and hastily photographed. Egypt’s post-”Islamic”— and particularly its 19th and 20th century— culture has therefore been ignored, if not actively denigrated, by the Council.

12 Rules and 3 Translations from Banipal-commended Translator Maia Tabet

Maia Tabet’s 2010 translation of Elias Khoury’s White Masks was commended by the 2011 Banipal Prize judges, as was announced earlier this week. We resume our “10 rules” series in 2012 with 12 from this excellent friend of ArabLit:

1. Read a lot of good writing. Writing that sings, that makes your heart quicken, that you wished you had written yourself. For me, as an Arabic-English translator, going back to Shakespeare time and time again is invaluable

2. Try not to work on more than one literary project at a time because you need to have the music of the words echoing around your head even when you’re not at your desk.

3. Re-read (aloud if possible) accordeon fashion. First the sentence, or sentence fragment. Then the paragraph. Then the passage. Then the chapter, or entire piece. Listen for seamlessness.

4. Use a Thesaurus generously. It is not just a treasure trove of words, it feeds the imagination, and set off trains of thought when something is exercising you.

5. Sleep on it. A problem, or passage, where you are stuck WILL clear. Be patient, lay it to rest a bit, and then come back to it. As New Ageists would say, trust the process.

6. If the problem or “stuckness” does NOT resolve, and you’ve worked the sentence or passage over and over again and still can’t really nail what the author is getting at, more than likely the original was rickety and the writer was cutting a corner.

Calls for Submissions: Artellewa Arab Collaboration Project, Cycling Literature

From the Arab Collaboration Project:

The Artellewa Arab Collaboration Project will bring together six artists and writers from countries of the Arab uprisings in Cairo to collaboratively develop a creative project over a ten-week residency, from March 15 – May 31, 2012. Artellewa aims to create a space for reflection during this time of transition; a space for rejuvenation of ideas and progressive thought; a space for dialogue and exchange between artists who have experienced different modes of uprising and resistance. The project aims to strengthen a network that can envision a new Arab World in which cooperation and collaboration across national borders is normalized.

The deadline’s Feb 5 and you can follow them at @artellewa.

Read more here.

Call for Cycling Literature

Cycling in Cairo. From Green Prophet.

From Dr. Alon Raab:

We, Professors Elmar Schenkel, Jinhua Li and I, are co-editing a special section for World Literature Today featuring global literature on that most amazing vehicle of transportation and transformation, the bicycle. Previous anthologies have devoted 90% of their pages to writings by American and European males. We will include writings from lands rich in cycling traditions such as China, Turkey, India and Cameroon, by men and women. We are seeking additional poems, stories, sections from novels, essays (as well as references to the bicycle in plays, music, and plays.)

Dr. Raab is also looking for your suggestions: What’s the great Arab bicycle story? He can be contacted at akraab – at – ucdavis.edu.

Other calls:

Khaled Mattawa’s Translation of ‘Adonis: Selected Poems’ Wins 2011 Banipal Prize

This year’s Saif Ghobash – Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, announced last night, rewards three exceptional labors of loving translation. Khaled Mattawa’s translation of Adonis: Selected Poems is the winner of the 2011 Banipal prize; Barbara Romaine’s translation of Radwa Ashour’s Specters is runner-up; and the four judges also commended Maia Tabet’s translation of White Masks by Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury.

The 2011 prize considered books that were published in 2010 and are “available for sale” in the UK.

Mattawa, the Banipal Prize winner, is not just the translator of Adonis: Selected Poems. He is also the editor and tailor of this sweeping work. The book doesn’t represent just a collection of Adonis’s poems, but is a story of Adonis’s career, moving from poetic mode to poetic mode, following Adonis’s changing relationship to language and constantly shifting shape. The body of Adonis’s work must have presented Mattawa with a myriad of challenges, and Mattawa’s efforts expanded in range and scope to meet them. (My review.)

A Review of ‘Out of It,’ Selma Dabbagh’s Debut Novel

From my review in the Egypt Independent:

In her debut novel, British-Palestinian author Selma Dabbagh has set herself a very difficult task. “Out of It,” published by Bloomsbury UK, is a realist work that aims to portray life in Gaza justly and honestly. But the novel also works hard to be a fun and widely accessible read.

Dabbagh’s portrayal of Gaza is, in some ways, not so different from the gaping wound that Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish presents in his “Journal of an Ordinary Grief.” In Darwish’s 1973 prose-poetic work, he writes, “Gaza has not mastered the orator’s art. Gaza does not have a throat. The pores of her skin speak in sweat, blood and fire.”

In Dabbagh’s “Out of It,” Gaza also struggles to articulate its vision, and speaks in sweat, blood and fire. The landscape is broken down, muddy, concrete and ugly. But Dabbagh’s novel is not just a raw depiction of pain and struggle, legless men and powerless committees. It also has central characters that are appealing, savvy young people who smoke pot, have sex, crack jokes, doubt themselves and hurtle through the novel’s fast-paced action.

“Out of It” is thus a Gaza story that’s situated — either by chance or design — to attract the sympathy of a broad section of the English-reading public. The two main characters, twin siblings Rashid and Iman, are native Palestinians. But they are also outsider-insiders who have lived much of their lives abroad. As such, they are poised to “translate” Gaza for a culturally Western audience.

Rashid and Iman are largely trapped inside Gaza, but they are also children of Palestine’s “Outside Leadership.” The novel’s action takes Rashid and Iman to England, and both have relationships with Brits. The siblings are easy for a British public to relate to because neither is particularly religious. And, while Iman is passionate about her country, she doesn’t have a formulaic political vision. Both sister and brother are feeling their way through the landscape, trying somehow to find their role and their happiness.

“Out of It” thus opens itself easily to the non-Palestinian reader. But, at times, the book’s accessibility and honesty are muddled by its rapid pace. The action moves so briskly that it’s difficult to follow the major shifts in characters’ behaviors and motives. Early on, Iman briefly decides to go on a suicide mission, spurred by the sight of loved ones’ charred bodies. But the action moves so quickly — she dashes in and out of the hospital; she spends a few moments with the family; she plunges into her decision — that the reader doesn’t get the full emotional impact. Go on; keep reading. 

More: A discussion between Maggie Gee and Selma Dabbagh.