Salim Barakat

What About Rachel, the Jewish Lady?

Eman Abdelrahim

Hisham Bustani

Bushra al-Fadil

Diaa Jubaili

Abdallah Zrika

Amgad ElSabban

M. Qualey

The second edition of ArabLit Quarterly will unsettle and awe you with an appreciation of "the Strange" in Arabic literature translated into English. Rachel Schine splices the personal demons of rapper Kendrick Lamar with the ghouls that afflicted fifth-century poet Ta'abbata Sharran. Fadwa Suleiman of Syria talks to her suitcase in a poem translated by Marilyn Hacker. Trays "loaded with skulls and spiced with hearts" pass by in works of the late Syrian Abd al-Latif Khattab translated by Daniel Behar. Astonishing worlds in the poetry of Morocco's Abdallah Zrika are explored in an interview by Ali Abdeddine and Shireen Hamza and translation by Hamza and Tim DeMay. Nada Menzalji of Syria finds herself in a "Land of Strangers" in her poem translated by Valentina Viene, while Salim Barakat beseeches Syria to return "to what astonishes and dumbfounds" in a poem translated by Huda Fakhreddine and Jayson Iwen. Hoda Marmar tells the late Emily Nasrallah how she was dumbfounded by the Lebanese novelist in this installment of "Open Letter to a Late Author," and in the ltest "Translate This," Susan Slyomovics makes the case for why English readers deserve Algerian Amina Mekahli's novel Nomad Burning. The strange covers on the books of Palestinian author and poet Mazen Maarouf are examined by M Lynx Qualey. The food scholar Nawal Nasrallah finds poetry in a recipe for sweet chicken from medieval Egypt. The physician-poets Fouad M. Fouad and Norbert Hirschhorn discuss their translation exchange. Or sip a selection of stories as short of a cup of tea or as quick as a mocha by Tareq Imam of Egypt translated by Riham Adly, Diaa Jubaili of Iraq translated by Yasmeen Hanoosh, Eman Abdelrahim of Egypt translated by Nashwa Gowanlock, Bushra Al-Fadil of Sudan translated by Lemya Shammat, Hisham Bustani of Jordan translated by maia tabet, Amgad ElSabban of Egypt translated by Mona Khedr.

The Strange

ArabLit Quarterly Winter/Spring 2019

Introduces renowned Kurdish-Syrian writer Salim Barkat to an English audience for the first time, with translated selections from his most acclaimed works of poetry. Although Salim Barakat is one of the most renowned and respected contemporary writers in Arabic letters, he remains virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. This first collection of his poetry in English, representing every stage of his career, remedies that startling omission. Come, Take a Gentle Stab features selections from his most acclaimed works of poetry, including excerpts from his book-length poems, rendered into an English that captures the exultation of language for which he is famous. A Kurdish-Syrian man, Barakat chose to write in Arabic, the language of cultural and political hegemony that has marginalized his people. Like Paul Celan, he mastered the language of the oppressor to such an extent that the course of the language itself has been compelled to bend to his will. Barakat pushes Arabic to a point just beyond its linguistic limits, stretching those limits. He resists coherence, but never destroys it, pulling back before the final blow. What results is a figurative abstraction of struggle, as alive as the struggle itself. And always beneath the surface of this roiling water one can glimpse the deep currents of ancient Kurdish culture.

Selected Poems

Come, Take a Gentle Stab

Salim Barakat

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