The “great moon of December” leads us into the final starts of 2021, though the literary world shows no signs of winding down. Let our editors introduce you to classical poetry reawakened, Arab literature awards, star-studded literary events in Tokyo, the latest from the European Literature Festival, and much more!
Carol Khoury, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Palestine
Once upon a time, the so-called ‘women’s magazines’ of today had a completely different form (though they were never truly intended for women per se). Back in the tenth century, there was a celebrated Shiʻite Muslim Arab court poet, master chef, and polymath called Kushājim; originally from Ramla in Palestine—near contemporary Tel Aviv—Kushājim lived during the turbulent war-ridden period of the Middle and Late Abbasid Caliphates, which led him to move between Jerusalem, Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo before finally settling in Aleppo. During his lifetime, Kushājim was considered the epitome of excellence in literature, and was highly commended by the literary critics of his time, both for his poetic works and intellectual faculties. His canon “vividly chronicles culinary, social, and intellectual aspects of court life [. . .], detailing numerous native and exotic foodstuffs and recipes; the social etiquettes of sharing wine and food; the various musical instruments used at the time to entertain the caliphs and their guests; the harem with its cross-dressing male and female dancers, concubines, and odalisques; the wide variety of plants and geometric designs found in courtly gardens; indoor pastimes and outdoor sports; the art of gift-giving; and the traits of coveted courtiers and boon companions.” What does this resemble but the contemporary women’s magazine?
Ancient Exchanges, an online journal at the University of Iowa devoted to literary translations of ancient texts, has recently published four gastronomic poems by Kushājim—on asparagus, mushabbak, khushkanaj (both desserts), and pomegranates. Translated from classical Arabic by Salma Harland, the four poems are run bilingually, accompanied with art by ArabLit Quarterly art director Hassân Al Mohtasib.
In her translator’s note (which includes a teaching guide), Harland explains that “although the original poems were written in accordance with the fixed feet and rhyme schemes often used in classical Arabic poetry, I have chosen to prioritize aesthetic grace and readability over meter without completely eliminating musicality.”
One is invited to take a seat at Kushājim’s table, set by Harland, and to take in a feast by a master who “not only details the preparation methods and ingredients needed for certain dishes but also the impact that their elegant presentation has on the banquet guests. Mouths water and eager hands cannot keep their distance”; even “[a] sedulous ascetic would break his fast / and yield before such a repast.”
As for a bouquet (per the Arab idiom of being a flower from every garden) of news to complement the banquet, the standout would certainly be the suspension of the 2021 Khartoum International Book Fair, which started on October 22 and was scheduled to continue until November 1. The director of the exhibition apologized to the participants and stated the reasons as being the present circumstances, the developments of the military coup, and the arrest of the Prime Minister, Minister of Culture and Information, and members of the transitional government.
In happier news, the Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) announced the first two longlists of their 2021-22 awards season, in the “Young Author” and “Children’s Literature” categories.
The Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation also announced this year’s shortlist of five names. As for winners, the 2021 Prix de La Littérature Arabe, a French prize that celebrates literature by Arab authors written in French or literature translated from Arabic to French, went to Les corps célestes (Celestial Bodies) by Omani author Jokha Alharthi, and translated from Arabic by Khaled Osman (read more about the novel here). Another big winner is Dar Al Jadeed, who was selected by The International Publishers Association’s “Freedom to Publish Committee” to receive the 2021 IPA Prix Voltaire. Dar Al Jadeed Publishing House was cofounded by Lokman Slim and his sister, Rasha al Ameer in Beirut, Lebanon in 2000, to publish cultural works free of ideological conflict or partisanship. In February 2021, Lokman Slim was murdered after a campaign of threats and intimidation over his efforts to bring greater freedom of expression and open dialogue to Lebanon.
The Arab world pays tribute to Etel Adnan, the globally celebrated Lebanese-American poet, author, journalist and painter, who died in Paris at the age of ninety-six. Adnan’s luminous Time, translated from the French by Sarah Riggs, won the Griffin Poetry Prize last year. Lebanon also mourns the author, critic, translator, publisher, and editor-in-chief of Al-Adab magazine Samah Idriss, who died in Beirut (at the age of sixty) after recently learning he had cancer. Idriss was a celebrated author of vibrant, child-centred picture books and young-adult novels that played with language and told fun, relatable stories. The son of the late founder of the Dar Al-Adab, Idriss published prolifically, including two works of literary criticism, four novels for young people, and nearly a dozen picture books.
The theatre has its share of losses with the death of Mahmoud El Lozy, who died in Cairo at the age of sixty-seven. A professor at the American University in Cairo, as well as a translator, playwright, and actor, El Lozy was the translator of Tawfiq al-Hakim’s The People of the Cave; in 2013, he participated in the Center for Translation Studies series of translation talks, speaking about “Translating for the Stage: Opportunities and Limitations.”
After a short struggle with cancer, the British translator of Arabic fiction and classical texts, Humphrey Davies, died at a UK hospital at the age of seventy-four. He became known to the wider literary-translation community in 2013 through his delightful translations of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, bringing the nineteenth-century peripatetic storyteller to an appreciative global-English audience through a variety of approaches—including Urban Dictionary and using Google Translating Latin. ArabLit will open up a memorial space for everyone who wants to come by, listen, and share thoughts about Humphrey Davies.
Laurel Taylor, Assistant Editor of Fiction, reporting from Japan
The ongoing pandemic has had a major impact on the global literary scene, particularly through the closures of venues, cultural associations, and other organizations bringing literature closer to its readers. The Waseda International House of Literature, originally slated to open in 2020, at last opened its doors on October 1, kicking off its opening with the Authors Alive series. As part of the House’s stated goal of giving visitors “new discoveries and exchanges” in literature, participants were invited to take part in literary readings and workshops with some of Japan’s foremost writers, including the likes of past Asymptote contributors Haruki Murakami, Sayaka Murata, and Hiromi Ito.
I was lucky enough to be invited to Ito’s workshop this past week to better experience all the House has to offer. After a brief tour of the facilities, we were lead to a classroom where Ito conducted the fifteen attendees through an exercise in renshi, the more modern cousin of Japanese traditional renga linked verse. Participants were divided into small groups, and in a round-robin, each person wrote a few lines of the poem utilizing Ito’s fundamental rules: 1) do not repeat any images that came before; 2) do not use conjunctions; and 3) relax! Unlike exquisite corpse poetry, however, participants were encouraged to consult each other in order to produce a collaborative, cohesive set of images, rather than a surprise work at the culmination.
Courtesy of Waseda University
Many of the participants were writing poetry for the first time, and Ito encouraged us to use the library’s exhibits and sights as a point of inspiration for verses. Some groups transformed their works into wild dancing performance pieces, while others, basking in a brief surprise visit from Murakami, were a bit more staid in their final presentations. The workshop concluded with a reading from Ito, who performed an energetic, radical feminist translation of The Tale of Genji Confessional, a medieval Buddhist text claiming that Murasaki Shikibu would burn in hell for daring to write Japan’s most famous literary work. In her conclusion, Ito encouraged participants to continue writing, and indeed, because of the relative ease of these renshi rules, they may be a perfect activity for upcoming gatherings with close friends and family.
Mary Hillis, Educational Arm Assistant, Reporting on the European Literature Festival
The fifth European Literature Festival, held online from November 17 to 26, brought together European authors with Japanese academics and translators. Organized by the Delegation of the European Union to Japan as well as European embassies and cultural institutes in Japan, the theme of this year’s festival was “New Perspectives,” and many talks touched on the topics of the pandemic, culture, science, nature, and climate change. With the conference being held just after the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the opening session, featuring German writer Frank Schätzing in conversation with Jisung Kim about sustainability, climate change, and activism, seemed especially prescient.
Over fifteen sessions were held to promote European literature to the Japanese public. European authors, working in a variety of genres, participated in the festival—including Kateřina Tučková (Czech Republic), Drago Jančar (Slovenia), John Ajvide Lindqvist (Sweden), Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), and other renowned writers. Translator Ayano Shibata presented the history of Polish writer Stanisław Lem’s work in Japanese translation, as this year marks “The Year of Lem,” commemorating the centennial of his birth.
One event, “Echos Camusien,” featured panelists related to the work of Albert Camus; Jacques Ferrandez (who brought The Stranger and The First Man to graphic novel form), Fuminori Nakamura (author of The Thief), Hiroshi Mino (translator of The Plague to Japanese), and Etsuko Aoyagi (translator of Ferrandez’s work to Japanese). Ferrandez was also a guest earlier in the month at the Festival Feuilles d’automn 2021, sponsored by the Embassy of France and the Institut Francais Japon. Ryota Kurumado, whose manga adaptation of The Plague has recently been released in French translation, joined Ferrandez in that discussion.
Children’s literature was also featured at the Festival; a presentation about the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was delivered, with the 2010 recipient, Kitty Crowther (Belgium), discussing her book, Je veux un chien—which can be read in the original French and English translation (tr. Kitty Crowther and Sam McCullen) on the festival website for a limited time. Translator Aya Kimura was in conversation with two well-known children’s authors in Lithuania—Marius Marcinkevičius, author of poetry books for children, and Jurga Vilė, author of Siberian Haiku (illustrated by Lina Itagaki)—about the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia. Marék Veronika (Hungary) and Toon Tellegen (Netherlands) also spoke about their work for children.
The final session of the literary festival was a panel discussion on the EuropeReadr digital library, which aims to develop interest in European literature and culture by providing free literary texts from member nations. Even though this iteration of the European Literature Festival has concluded, select excerpts and short stories by this year’s featured authors are still available for a limited time on the festival website.
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