We are so pleased to report that the second Arabic Literature Tour we have helped support was a great success! It presented two novels by Syrian author Shahla Ujayli, translated by Michelle Hartman: A Sky So Close to Us and Summer with the Enemy.
Roth Foundation Vice-Chair Anne Barbaro attended the last stop of the tour at Georgetown University. She writes: “The presentation made me want to read the novels, which contain carefully-researched episodes ranging from as far back as the 9th century, to a bittersweet story in a contemporary refugee camp. The discussion of the specific challenges involved in translating from Arabic—with its layers of formal and informal modes and ancient and modern styles—was also an eye-opener.”
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You might be interested to hear more about the Arabic Literature Tour, part of our Literature & Translation section, which sometimes strikes people as an outlier among our programs. Our partner in this project is the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). IPAF is the most important literary prize in the Arab world. Its aim is to reward excellence in contemporary Arabic creative writing and to encourage the readership of high-quality Arabic literature internationally. In October 2018, Roth Board Chair Skyler Arndt Briggs was privileged to attend the start of the very first US IPAF tour, which took place at Amherst College. Author Saud Alsanousi and British journalist and translator Jonathan Wright presented Alsanousi’s novel The Bamboo Stalk. (Watch a video of their NYU event here.)
At the time, Skyler was thinking about how to strengthen the Roth Foundation’s Literature & Translation program. Both Lois Roth (who translated the first Swedish mystery novel published in English) and Richard T. Arndt (who established the Foundation in Lois’s memory) were firm believers that literature offers an unparalleled window into other cultures, times and places. From her perspective, literary translations into English, in particular, can play an important role in helping counter the insularity of US culture. At Amherst College that night, she was thus enchanted by both the readings in Arabic and English, and the discussions with the author and translator about the novel’s origins and the translation process.
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Tour organizer and independent publisher Michel Moushabeck, of Interlink Publishing, noted that Arab-language authors are virtually unknown to even the most voracious American readers. While interest in Arabic fiction is on the rise in North America, especially in academia, novels translated from Arabic largely go unnoticed due to insufficient, often nonexistent publicity. A growing scholarly interest in translation as a communicative process is also not reflected on the ground or in popular culture. Finally, independent presses—who are most committed to promoting literature-in-translation—do not have the resources to support author-translator appearances due to the prohibitive cost of international travel.
More recently Moushabeck, with whom the idea for the US tour also originated, wrote: “In 2018, as you will remember, it was not an easy task for an author from an Arab country to get a US visa. That year the IPAF Board had selected 3 candidates for a US tour. Saud Alsanousi, was able to get a visa quickly because Kuwait was not one of the countries on the so-called ‘Muslim Ban.’ The Bamboo Stalk had 34 printings in its original Arabic and was translated into more than a dozen languages.”
In 2019, the Roth Foundation was very pleased to help bring Iraqi author Shahad Al Rawi and her translator, Luke Leafgren, to present her beautiful coming-of-age novel, The Baghdad Clock. As with this year’s tour, it goes without saying that the Roth Foundation is particularly happy to help present the voices of women writing in Arabic!
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Mostly, we are extremely pleased that this pathbreaking project has picked up again with such resounding success after its long, pandemic-induced hiatus! If you, too, value the ability of literature to open windows into other cultures, times and places, please consider making a donation in support of the Roth Foundation Literature & Translation Program!
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