A CATALOGUE OF CONTEMPORARY BALKAN AUTHORS PUBLISHED IN ARABIC BY THE NEXT PAGE FOUNDATION

THE UNPRECEDENTED EDITION IS A MAJOR STEP AHEAD IN PROMOTING TRANSLATIONS OF BALKAN LITERATURE TO ARAB PUBLISHERS

„New Literary Voices from the Balkans. Arab Translators’ Choice” includes authors’ and translators’ profiles as well as sample translations into Arabic of six contemporary literary works. The selection is made by the translators themselves. The group of prominent translators into Arabic had met earlier this year during the Balkan-Arabic Translation Residency and workshop to work on the translations, to discuss and to edit them collectively. The residency & workshop programme was organised by Next Page Foundation and partners within the Translation Collider Project.

While the Balkans and the Arab World share historical and cultural connections as well as recent experiences of social turbulences, literary exchanges reflecting on these links via translation, rarely happen. With the exception of Turkish, translations from most of the languages of the Balkan Peninsula into Arabic are next to absent which impedes Arab readers’ access to the diversity of literary texts of the Balkans. The catalogue is the first attempt to promote the literature of the Balkans by attracting Arab publishers’ attention to it.

„This is a major step in the promotion of contemporary literature of the Balkans among the Arab publishers that have few channels for getting information on contemporary Balkan authors”, says Yana Genova, -dir-ector of Next Page Foundation. “With highlighting the “translators’ choice” we emphasize the important role of the literary translator in the process of cultural interaction. It is worth mentioning that most of the texts included are -dir-ect translations. We hope this edition will contribute to increasing literary translations of contemporary European literature into Arabic and to intensifying literary exchange”

Download the catalogue for free at https://www.translationcollider.org/new-literary-voices-from-the-balkans-arab-translators-choice/´-or-get in touch with us at [email protected] to pre-order a -print-ed copy that you can get during the Frankfurt Book Fair this October.
The -print-ed edition will be disseminated free of charge to publishers, festivals, professional organisations and other players in the book sector, both in the Arab world and in Europe.
Here is what the prominent Egyptian writer and cultural activist Khaled Al Khamissi says on the catalogue:
“… The book that we are holding is a serious attempt to satisfy our hunger and thirst for translations from other languages. I hope this is a good start and it will be followed by translations, opening the doors of the world for us‘’


NEW LITERARY VOICES FROM THE BALKANS. ARAB TRANSLATORS’ CHOICE includes:
"The Bread of Sorrow" by Georgi Gospodinov. One of the most popular and widely translated contemporary Bulgarian authors, Georgi Gospodinov, is a writer, poet and a playwright. The excerpt from Chapter One of the "Physics of Sorrow", already published in USA and across Europe, comes into Arabic thanks to his Arabic translator Nedelya Kitaeva, a prominent Bulgarian Arabist with extensive translation experience, including the poets Adonis, Qassim Haddad, Ani Ilkov, Ekaterina Yosifova, and works of the novelists Elias Khoury and Shukri al-Mabkhout.
"The Taste of the Desert" by Iphigenia Theodorou. This work, considered to be one of the most important of the Greek author Iphigenia Theodorou, takes us to Syria today and in the past, through the perspective of a love story. The translation into Arabic is by Dr. Khaled Raо-;-uf who is also the author of the first -dir-ect translation of Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis. Khaled Raouf holds a PhD in History of Art from the University of Chicago and has translated into Arabic works by Konstantí-;-nos Pétrou Kavá-;-fis, Stratis Tsirkas and others.
"The Kestrel" by Miglena Nikolchina. A professor of theory and history of literature at the Sofia University and a literary critic, famous for her interpretations of Julia Krusteva, prof. Miglena Nikolchina is also an author of poetry and short story collections. ‘’The Kestrel’’ is translated into Arabic by Hayri Hamdan, author, poet and translator of anthologies of Bulgarian fiction and poetry in Arabic, including short stories for children.
“One Page Plays” by Vrsan Leš-;-tarić-;-. The Serbian author of short stories and short plays Vrsan Leš-;-tarić-;- was born in Tripoli-;- he became acquainted with Arabic language and culture through his experience as a translator and his life in Baghdad and Damascus. The translation into Arabic of “One Page Plays” is accomplished by Srpko Leš-;-tarić-;- who has translated from Arabic to Serbian more than 25 collections of modern short stories and novels by prominent Arab authors (such as Naguib Mahfouz and Zakariyya Tamir) as well as of seven compilations of genuine Arab folk tales from the spoken dialects of the Arab East.
"Istanbul, Istanbul" by Burhan Sö-;-nmez. The Turkish novelist and publisher Burhan Sö-;-nmez is inspired by his childhood spent in a village without electricity and by the Kurdish legends that his mother used to tell him. A sample by "Istanbul, Istanbul" is translated by Dr Ahmed Mourad, a professor of Turkish language and literature at Al-Alsun University. Dr Mourad has previously translated works by Nazim Hikmet and has authored a number of academic papers on Turkish authors and on the challenges in literary translation between Turkish and Arabic.
"A Handful of Sand" by Marinko Koš-;-č-;-ec. The Croatian writer and translator Marinko Koš-;-č-;-ic is also a publisher and editor. His works have been translated into English, French and Dutch. An excerpt from "A Handful of Sand" is translated from English into Arabic by Ashraf Rady, an Egyptian journalist, political scientist and translator. For him "A Handful of Sand" is a continuation of his translation of the Croatian novel ‘’Our Man in Iraq’’ by Robert Periš-;-ić-;-, that also examines the post-military life in former Yugoslavia.

The catalogue is published within the Translation Collider project of Next Page Foundation, in partnership with Sefsafa (Cairo) and „Kalem Kultur“ (Istanbul), kindly supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation and the Culture Programme of the Sofia Municipality.

The Anna Lindh Foundation promotes intercultural exchanges and common projects among the civil societies of the Euro-Mediterranean region. We are an international institution, established by the governments of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the European -union- as the central institution for intercultural dialogue among the people of the region. With its headquarters in Alexandria, the Anna Lindh Foundation runs as an international network of over 4000 civil society organizations with the aim of facilitating collaborations and common actions among them.

For more information:
www.annalindhfoundation.org
[email protected]

The Anna Lindh Foundation is co-funded by the European -union-

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