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Poet Sawsan Al-Areeqe on the Best and Worst of Being a Poet in Yemen and Why...
While she was in Iowa City, participating in the International Writing Program (IWP)’s fall 2013 residency, Yemeni poet and filmmaker Sawsan Al-Areeqe spoke with the program’s “On the Map” series. The...
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A Bird Is Not a Stone: The Palestinian Poets ‘Rarely Translated into English’
A Bird is not a Stone, ed. Henry Bell and Sarah Irving, is a collection of poems by contemporary Palestinian writers forthcoming from Glasgow’s Freight Books. The translations are done — through the...
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Moroccan Poet Mohammed Bennis Receives France’s Max Jacob ‘Étranger’ Prize
Yesterday, Moroccan poet Mohammed Bennis was awarded one of two Max Jacob prizes at a ceremony in Paris: Photo credit: Olivia Snaije Bennis receieved the prize, which is now in its 64th year, for his...
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On Ibn al-Hajjaj, Whose Poems Schoolboys Were Beaten for Memorizing
If there were two disappointments I had while reading the opening chapter of Sinan Antoon’s The Poetics of the Obscene in Premodern Arabic Poetry, “Ibn al-Hajjaj and Sukhf: Genealogies,” they were: 1)...
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Today Is Your Birthday: The Thirteenth of March
Mahmoud Darwish was born on this day in 1941. Eleven cities around Italy are remembering his work today, keeping it in the light, and (virtually) we join them: From Ibrahim Muhawi’s wonderful...
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Report: All of Mahmoud Darwish’s Books Removed from Riyadh Book Fair
Just a few days after all the works by Saudi publisher Arab Network for Research and Publishing were removed from the Riyadh International Book Fair for violating the Kingdom’s laws, the works of...
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‘I Need an Abacus with Coloured Beads…’: A New Poem from Syria
Fawaz Azem, who earlier shared his translation of poems by Dima Yousf and Nihad Sayed Issa, has now translated a new work by the Syrian writer Derar Soltan Kurdieh, “My Fingers Are Not Enough.” Azem...
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‘Every Text Remains in Mourning Until It Is Translated’
At the end of last month, Iraqi poet, scholar, and novelist Sinan Antoon gave a lecture on literary translation titled “Translation as Mourning” at Boston University. Neila Columbo was there: By Neila...
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In Support of…Omar Hazek
Last week, there was a discussion of Alexandria poet Omar Hazek’s new book,: PEN International, which has investigated Hazek’s case, also came out last week with an action appeal on Hazek’s behalf. In...
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‘Thank You, Bullet That Claimed Father’s Life…’
Translator Fawaz Azem brings us another poem from young Syrian-Palestinian poet Dima Yousf. Azem notes that the Yarmouk Camp referred to in the poem is a Palestinian community established outside...
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Cherries, Lemons, and the Surge in Creative Writing Opportunities in Lebanon
Mishka Mojabbar Mourani was recently at a “Karaz w Laimoon” literary gathering in Beirut, and remarked on both the flowering of literary events in Beirut and the fluid movement between languages:...
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‘Time is a Scarecrow’: 13 Newly Translated Palestinian Poems
On three publications and a Tumblr, thirteen newly translated poems by Palestinian authors Mazen Maarouf, Najwan Darwish, and Ashraf Zaghal: Poems by Mazen Maarouf, trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid and...
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‘No Palestinian Has Ever Written Poetry Quite Like This Before’
Before I ever met Najwan Darwish, I’d imagined him in an impassioned frustration, throwing handfuls of promotional fliers in the air: That was at the 2011 Palestine Festival of Literature. Two years...
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Kickstarter: Help Palestinian Poets Reach ‘A Bird is not a Stone’ Events
From now through May 9, 2014, the editors and and organizers of the poetry collection A Bird is not a Stone are running a campaign to rise £3,000 to distribute the book more widely and to support...
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‘Christ in Yarmouk’
Translator Fawaz Azem brings us another poem from young Syrian-Palestinian poet Dima Yousf. Dima Yousf Azem notes that the Yarmouk Camp is a Palestinian community established outside Damascus in 1957....
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Three New Poems by Rula Jurdi: ‘Your Rhythm in the Reciter’s...
Lebanese poet, novelist, and scholar Rula Jurdi released her first poetry collection last fall. These three poems are from Jurdi’s 2013 debut, Ghilaf al-Qalb (The Heart’s Peel), published by Dar Nelson...
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Crowdfunding and ‘A Bird is not a Stone’: Why It Worked, How To Do It Again
Sarah Irving and Henry Bell, co-editors of the forthcoming volume of Palestinian poetry in translation — A Bird is not a Stone — are perhaps the first to run a successful crowdfunding campaign to...
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‘Jetties’: Translating Mohammed Dib Through ‘Sound, Gesture, Movement and...
Madeleine Campbell is the force behind the public engagement project Jetties, designed to stage the poetry of Algerian author Mohammed Dib (1920-2003) in contemporary frames and contexts. Campbell...
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‘Settled Wanderers’: Kickstarter for Collection of Sahrawi Poetry
Just after the A Bird is Not a Stone Kickstarter success, the collection Settled Wanderers — a project to collect and translate Sahrawi poetry — has also made its goal with several days to go....
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Watching Poetry Films: ‘Arab Countries Were the Only Ones Not Taking Part’
Syrian-born Palestinian poet Ghayath al-Madhoun is one of the few who write in Arabic to have achieved international acclaim in the art of poetry filmmaking: There are others who have been trying their...
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