Category: Arabic

The Digitization Process at Iraq’s National Library

via Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on AUGUST 8, 2015 • ( 0 ) The Associated Press recently ran a brief story about digitization and restoration efforts at the Iraqi National Library in Baghdad: Digitization efforts have been ongoing for several years, as noted in this 2013 International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) interview with Saad Eskander, Director of Iraq National Library and Archives. The hook in … Read more The Digitization Process at Iraq’s National Library

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Wallada Bint al-Mustakfi

Yesterday I posted a review of  Ibn al-Sa’i’s Consorts of the Caliphs, which mentions one of the great women poets of the 10C: Wallada Bint al-Mustakfi (Córdoba, 994–1091). She has been a favorite of mine for a long time, both for her art & for her stance as a woman in Muslim culture. Habib Tengour & I published some of her work in volume 4 of the Poems for the … Read more Wallada Bint al-Mustakfi

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In the Footsteps of Powerful Slave and Free Women of Baghdad

Via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on AUGUST 3, 2015 Shawkat Toorawa, Associate Professor of Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies at Cornell University and co-executive editor of the Library of Arabic Literature, has worked on collaboratively translating Ibn al-Sa’i’s Consorts of the Caliphs, off and on, for more than a decade: first as part of Radical Reassessment of Arabic Arts, Language, and Literature (RRAALL), and … Read more In the Footsteps of Powerful Slave and Free Women of Baghdad

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Arabic Literature Is from Mars, English Literature from Venus:

A Comparative Balancing Act BY MLYNXQUALEY on JUNE 29, 2015 • ( 0 ) The third session of “A Corpus Not a Canon: A Workshop on the Library of Arabic Literature,” a panel series hosted by Dame Marina Warner and LAL General Editor Philip Kennedy at All Souls College, Oxford in April, focused on “LAL’s importance to comparative literature and ways of reading”: Marina Warner led a discussion that included comparativists … Read more Arabic Literature Is from Mars, English Literature from Venus:

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MOROCCO IN ‘OPEN CONFRONTATION WITH THE ARABIC LANGUAGE(S)’?

BY MLYNXQUALEY on JUNE 25, 2015 • ( 2 ) Morocco’s “National Coalition for Arabic” is reportedly up in arms over a Ramadan sitcom it says “mocks the Arabic language”; a government minister says speaking formal Arabic causes her “a fever”; a recent report suggests teaching Darija, or Moroccan Arabic, in early primary: An ordinary summer in the struggle over language in Morocco. Darija* (the language that’s doing the mocking) and Standard … Read more MOROCCO IN ‘OPEN CONFRONTATION WITH THE ARABIC LANGUAGE(S)’?

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Genre, Anxiety, and the Plurivocality of the Arabic Tradition

via the always excellent Arabic Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on JUNE 22, 2015 • ( 1 ) The second session of the “A Corpus Not a Canon: A Workshop on the Library of Arabic Literature,” a panel series hosted by Dame Marina Warner and LAL General Editor Philip Kennedy at All Souls College, Oxford, this April. focused on the different genres and modes of writing embraced by the LAL: On the … Read more Genre, Anxiety, and the Plurivocality of the Arabic Tradition

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Humphrey Davies on ‘Representational Translation’ and the Uses of Urban Dictionary and Google Translate

via Arab Literature (in English) byB MLYNXQUALEY on APRIL 28, 2015 • ( 0 ) During his talk about Leg over Leg on Saturday’s Library of Arabic Literature workshop in Oxford, Humphrey Davies discussed the “hardest challenge for me as a translator in this book”: This was, he said, the lists of words that are like a “magical invocation” in Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s text, through which “an almost surreal affect is achieved.” “In the middle … Read more Humphrey Davies on ‘Representational Translation’ and the Uses of Urban Dictionary and Google Translate

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Translation and Expectation: Which ‘For Bread Alone’ Are You Reading?

via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on AUGUST 24, 2014 • ( 0 ) Yesterday, ArabLit posted about a new Mohamed Choukri International Award while making only slight mention of the circumstances under which Choukri’s internationally acclaimed al-Khubz al-Hafi was translated into English. Indeed, calling it a translation is perhaps inaccurate:  Addressing this issue is Nirvana Tanoukhi’s “Rewriting Political Commitment for an International Canon: Paul Bowles’s For Bread Alone as Translation of Mohamed Choukri’s Al-Khubz Al-Hafi” (2003). Any translation will differ from … Read more Translation and Expectation: Which ‘For Bread Alone’ Are You Reading?

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Anny Gaul on Sinan Antoon on Translation, Poetics & Politics

via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): Translation as Mourning, Translation as a ‘Form of Cultural Interrogation’ by mlynxqualey In a lecture at the American University in Cairo last March, Iraqi poet and translator Sinan Antoon wove together poetics and politics, linking an understanding of translation as “extended mourning” with observations from his experience as a translator of Arabic poetry into English. Anny Gaul reflects on the lecture … Read more Anny Gaul on Sinan Antoon on Translation, Poetics & Politics

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A New Arab Magazine of Experimental Writing

Via the incomparable Arab Literature (in English) website: ‘Makhzin’ and the Link Between Multilingualism and Experimental Writing by mlynxqualey At 6 p.m. tomorrow, the new experimental, trilingual Makhzin will launch its first issue in Beirut. Editor Mirene Arsanios answered a few questions about the project: ArabLit: Why experimental works? What role do you think experimental and avant garde works play in the literary arts? Locally, regionally, globally? Mirene Arsanios: Experimental work is a broad term. I … Read more A New Arab Magazine of Experimental Writing

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