Hend Saeed Discusses Translation With Ghareeb Iskander

At ArabLit, Hend Saeed and Ghareeb Iskander talk about responsibility and care when translating between English and Arabic. To introduce their conversation, Saeed writes, "After reading Gilgamesh’s Snake, I followed Iskander and wanted to know more about his work, what he thinks about 2018 Baghdad Book Fair, and the Baghdad publishing scene." From there: 

HS: What are you working on now? Anything coming soon?

GI: I am currently working on a new collection of poetry, though I’m not sure yet exactly what it will be. Some of the poems were written when I was in Brazil, some in Beirut, and some in London.

I am also working with the Scottish poet John Glenday on translating selected poems by the Iraqi poet Ḥasab al-Shaik Ja‘far. This is our second project together. The first was a translation of my book Gilgamesh’s Snake and Other Poems, which was published in 2016 by Syracuse University Press.

When translating from Arabic into English I normally work with a native-speaker poet; when translating from English into Arabic I work alone, such as for Hunā Yakmun al-Furāgh (Here is the Emptiness), the selected poems by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, which was published in 2015.

HS: What did you think of the 2018 Baghdad Book Fair? Was it a good sign? 

GI: I have been back to Baghdad many times since the Change of 2003, but my visits never coincided with the Baghdad Book Fair, except in 2012. Book fairs are always a sign of a country’s healthy literary environment, as they are a chance for writers and readers to meet and discuss their works and other writers’ books, but for a country like Iraq, which has undergone turbulent upheavals in recent times, this is especially true.

Exiled writers who went abroad many years or even decades ago are now able to attend, as are Arab writers from other countries. Often this represents the first opportunity many readers have to meet their favorite writers face to face. The 2018 Book Fair was especially important because it came after the liberation of Mosul and other cities from ISIS. Books and culture can help rebuild what has been destroyed by terrorists. Book fairs can help schools, universities, and public libraries to rebuild their collections. These are all good signs about the ongoing rebirth of Iraq’s literary environment.

Read on at ArabLit.