This week, our editors on the ground report news of book fairs, award winners, and recognition of presses publishing translated literature. Suhasini Patni highlights recent Indian fiction receiving acclaim, while Carol Khoury introduces us to an award named after Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, a prolific Palestinian writer, artist, and translator. Read on to find out more!
Suhasini Patni, Editor-at-Large, reporting from India
The JCB Prize announced its longlist on October 4, 2021. Two out of the three translations have made it into the shortlist (Delhi: A Soliloquy and Anti-Clock). The winner of the Rs 25 lakh prize—with an additional Rs 10 lakh for the translator if it is a translated title—will be revealed on November 13. A longer discussion on the JCB Literary Prize is available here.
Naveen Kishore, founder of Seagull Books, won the 2021 Words Without Borders Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. Seagull Books was founded in 1982 and began with translating works by Indian regional dramatists into English. For his contribution to publishing, Kishore was made a Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 2014 and received the Goethe Medal from the Federal Republic of Germany in 2013. Seagull Books has published English translations of fiction and non-fiction by major African, European, Asian, and Latin American writers with over 500 books and authors such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Mahasweta Devi, and Hélène Cixous. Seagull author Mo Yan was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kishore published “Notes from a Journal I could have kept [But failed to. Keep]” on Words Without Borders Daily.
GQ released their list of best Indian Fiction of 2021. In this list, they feature The Thinnai by Ari Gautier. Translated from the French by Blake Smith, the book gives a glimpse into the working-class quarters of Pondicherry. A Frenchman chases after a mysterious diamond named after Goddess Sita and explores the social history of the former French colony. An excerpt of the book is available to read here.
Feminist activist, poet, and author Kamla Bhasin passed away on September 25, 2021. She was the founder of Sangat, a South Asian feminist network, was known for popularizing the slogan of “Azadi” in India, and wrote several poems and children’s books. Her popular poem, “Because I am a Girl, I Must Study” is available to watch in the original Hindi with English subtitles here.
An excerpt of the poem in English taken from How Matters:
To avoid destitution, I must study
To win independence, I must study
To fight frustration, I must study
To find inspiration, I must study
Because I am a girl, I must study.To fight men’s violence, I must study
To end my silence, I must study
To challenge patriarchy I must study
To demolish all hierarchy, I must study.
Because I am a girl, I must study.
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine
As book fairs in the Arab World resume this year with a heightened non-virtual presence, many readers are delighted to learn about one new award. Named for the prolific artist, writer, and cultural critic of Palestinian origin, the annual Jabra Ibrahim Jabra Manuscript Award was announced last week by the AUC Press, the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey (AMCA), and the Barjeel Art Foundation.
Palestinian Journeys describes Jabra Ibrahim Jabra as a Palestinian intellectual and artist of many talents and wide learning, a man of fine sensibility, great charm, sweet temperament, and humble bearing. He wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, plays, and literary criticism. He was an accomplished artist and a passionate fan of western classical music. He was also a highly accomplished translator of English novels, poetry, plays, and criticism. His translations of some of Shakespeare’s works are regarded as among the very finest and most accurate translations into Arabic. Several of his works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and other languages. Fakhri Saleh wrote about Jabra in Asymptote Issue July 2015 in a special feature on Palestinian writers titled “A Land Made of Words.”
Until very recently, it was believed that Jabra was born in Bethlehem in 1920. However, a ground-breaking study by William Tamplin revealed that Jabra (né Chelico) was born in 1919 in Adana in the French Mandate of Cilicia. Reading deeper into Jabra’s two autobiographies, Tamplin exposes and contextualizes biographical facts that Jabra concealed.
Jabra died in Bagdad in 1994, but in 2010, his house in Bagdad was struck by a car bomb attack, which killed a number of his relatives and destroyed his personal library of hundreds of books and his sizable collection of art.
While this new award will be presented to the best scholarly manuscript for contemporary and modern art history of the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey, it is also an opportunity to revive interest and hopefully shed new light on all of Jabra’s work, as well as his life and legacy.
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