Arabic literature in translation has a rich history spanning more than 1500 years across diverse and complex subjects. For many of these years, translated Arabic texts were highly sought after and ownership was a matter of pride and wealth.
Unfortunately, the last few hundred years saw a decline in authorship and a loss of status. This was due in part to changes in socio-political hierarchies around the world and, more recently, due to upheavals in Arab territories.
However, in the last few years, we have seen a surge in translated Arabic literature and a renewed interest from readers.
The availability of Arabic translations has been supported by incentives such as, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award, and newer works have more opportunities for translation and accessibility for readers than ever before.
But why should we, as readers, chose a translated Arabic text over a book written in English?
The answer is simple, and thought-provoking – contemporary Arabic literature is some of the most innovative and original of any language at present.
Upheaval and unrest (and the ensuing displaced people) seem to have created a pin-point of focus for the world’s media and a motivation for native authors who have a need to reveal and share their experiences of war, loss, love and hope.
Recent examples of the success of Arabic literature in translation include “Celestial Bodies” by Jokha Alharthi, winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, and Khaled Khalifa’s novel “Death is Hard Work” (2019) which was a finalist in the 2019 National Book Awards.
If you’d like to broaden your reading, and try some contemporary Arabic literature, below is a brief guide to some of the most popular Arabic literature in translation:
Death is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa (2019)
Set during the Syrian civil war, the novel tells the tale of three siblings tasked with honouring their father’s deathbed wish – to return his body to his ancestral village, 350 miles from the hospital bed in Damascus where he died.
Sibling differences intertwine with bombings, capture and torture throughout their journey, turning it from a few hour drive into a fight for their own lives.
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharth (2018)
Based in the village of al-Awafi in Omna, Celestial Bodies, follows the lives and loves of three sisters; Mayya, Asma and Khawla.
Each of the sisters has a different perspective – one marries from a sense of duty, another from a previous heartbreak, and the last from waiting for the love of her life.
The three women observe Oman change from a traditional, colonial entity to its present situation, all the while being interconnected with their own loves, lives and losses.
The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim (2013)
For a novelist who claims he isn’t interested in preserving the beauty of the Arabic language, he has done an awful lot for the promotion of it none the less, even if many of his works aren’t available in Arabic.
‘The Iraqi Christ’ is a collection of stories, not all exclusively about Iraq as some portray European forests and Christian soldiers, that tell of war, migration, death and religion.
In one, readers meet the Christian soldier, gifted with providence, who sacrifices himself for his mother, while in another, we hear from a narrator who falls into a hole with a flesh-eating jinn who once taught poetry in Baghdad!
Other prominent works by Blasim include:
• The Shia’s Poisoned Child (2008) story collection.
• Madman of Freedom Square (2009) Comma Press
• The Corpse Exhibition (2014) Penguin US, short stories
• Iraq +100 (2017) Tor Books, short story anthology
• Allah99, novel (English translation October 2019)
Hisham Matar’s The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between (2016)
Hisham Matar’s The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between is an emotionally charged work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences of searching for his father, who was kidnapped by Colonel Gadhafi’s forces while living in exile in Cairo.
Kidnapped in the late 1980s and taken to the infamous Abu Salim prison, Jaballa Matar, a businessman who opposed Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, was never seen again by his wife and two sons.
Hisham’s return to Libya in search of his father is an attempt to heal the festering wounds of loss and longing, or at least find evidence of his father’s probable demise.
Translation has given us access to some amazing international literature, including these raw, but often life-affirming, Arabic works.
These translated tales of inequality, love, migration, war, loss and environmental crisis are able to speak to Western readers in a way that engages understanding, empathy and compassion for others and gives an awareness of different cultures and lives which might otherwise be outside of most people’s linguistic reach.
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