New Samih al-Qasim anthology review
The Electronic Intifada, 3rd January 2017 The only two significant bodies of al-Qasim’s poetry available in translation were, until now, Sadder than Water, a fine bilingual edition from Jerusalem-based Ibis … Continue reading
Bart Moore-Gilbert on the perils of translated texts
Just found in a Bart Moore-Gilbert (RIP) article on Palestine and postcolonial studies an interesting example of the risks of literature scholars working from translations. It could be read, I … Continue reading
Review: Ghassan Zaqtan’s ‘Describing the Past’
The Electronic Intifada, 3rd October 2016 The theme of the unstable balance between myth and memory recurs constantly throughout the novella. “Things evaporate and die if they don’t find someone … Continue reading
Interfaith Lurve…
It’s not often I leave an academic conference having had a genuinely fun, stimulating, thoughtful three days. By the end of a three-dayer I – and I know this stands … Continue reading
New Review: Gilgamesh’s Snake and Other Poems
The Bottle Imp, 16th June 2016 Ghareeb Iskander’s own transformation of the Gilgamesh epic into a modern poem draws the original’s grandeur down to the personal scale, without rendering it … Continue reading
The Book of Khartoum
This is exciting (for me…). Comma Press now have copies of The Book of Khartoum, an anthology of Sudanese short stories co-edited by my fellow IMES PhDer Raph Cormack; I … Continue reading
Font imperialism
Anyone who can read Arabic but lives in the Anglophone world rapidly becomes used to seeing Arabic text turned into gibberish by Western word processing and layout software. For some … Continue reading
Reviewed: Hisham Bustani, “The Perception of Meaning”
Electronic Intifada, 16th February 2016 This collection of Bustani’s stories has been translated into English by Palestinian-Canadian translator Thoraya El-Rayyes, giving English-language readers their first opportunity to encounter Bustani’s work. … Continue reading
Reviewed: ‘La Estrella Invisible’
Electronic Intifada, 17th September 2015 On one level, these are deeply personal poems — intimate, allusive, sometimes subtly erotic. On another, though, the subtitle of the collection betrays the larger … Continue reading
Translation as Solidarity: The Book of Gaza
Originally posted on The Comma Press Blog:
GUEST BLOG – Sarah Irving, translator for The Book of Gaza, has written a post on translation, the current situation in Gaza and her…
New review: Lital Levy’s ‘Poetic Trespass’
Electronic Intifada, 19 May 2015 Rather, Levy puts forward an analysis of the ways in which literature and language have operated in the dark corners of this power-ridden, unequal environment. … Continue reading
Neoliberalism and higher education: a wee example from Edinburgh
As Isabel Lachenauer, one of the first – and possibly the last – graduates of the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Arabic masters programme writes: I strongly urge the Head of … Continue reading
New review: ‘Nothing More to Lose’
Electronic Intifada, 27th May 2014 With this collection of Najwan Darwish’s poetry — beautifully translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid — The New York Review of Books has made available to … Continue reading
A Bird is Not a Stone
Since it has been one of the consuming passions of the last eighteen months of my life, it seems about time that I post something on here about A Bird … Continue reading
New review: ‘Rhetorics of Belonging’
Electronic Intifada, 28th March 2014 When it is read in universities or for the pages of publications such as The New York Review of Books or literary supplements of London … Continue reading
Taha Muhammad ‘Ali reading ‘Revenge’
I’ve lately been reading Adina Hoffman’s incredible biography of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad ‘Ali, entitled My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness. Here’s footage of the late, great poet … Continue reading
Sarah Irving 