CMES Modern Middle East Literatures in Translation

Series · 5 books · 1998-2020

By Orit Gidali, Nazli Eray, Ibrahim al-Koni, and more

Books in series

#20

الدمية

1998

رواية

#26

A Portal in Space

2015

A Portal in Space, set in Basra, Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), follows the lives of Anwar, a newly minted architect, and the other members of his affluent family as they attempt to maintain a sense of normality during the frequent bombing attacks from Iran. When Anwar joins the Iraqi army and then goes missing in action, his family struggles to cope with uncertainty over his fate. His mother falls into depression and secludes herself in the family home, while his father shifts his attention from his duties as a judge to the weekly pilgrimage to Baghdad seeking information on his son-and to Zahra, the young widow he meets there.Emotionally engaging, A Portal in Space is a wry, wise tale of human beings striving to retain their humanity during a war that is anything but humane. Mahmoud Saeed succeeds brilliantly in bringing the sights and sounds of Iraq to life on the page-whether in a bunker on the front lines of the Iran-Iraq War or in the parlor of a fortune-teller in Baghdad. As Zahra says of the novel she is writing: "It is a normal novel that contains love, war, life, deceit, and death."

#27

Twenty Girls to Envy Me

Selected Poems of Orit Gidali

2016

This English-Hebrew book features three dozen poems by the extraordinary Israeli writer Orit Gidali (b. 1972), a unique voice among her contemporaries. Gidali's work appears to focus on the domestic, but for her, the domestic sphere is the stage on which the drama of the geopolitical is reworked on an individual scale. The domestic is always inhabited by the Other, who in these deeply personal poems appears in various guises: a Palestinian mother, biblical figures, the poet's own deceased mother, and her husband's first wife. Gidali creates a space in her world to imaginatively reconfigure the current political impasses of the region through a focus on relationship and openness. Gidali's poems, beautifully captured in English by Marcela Sulak, present a world beset by danger and uncertainty, yet they nonetheless cry out for community, connection, cooperation, and coexistence.

#29

The Black Rose of Halfeti

2012

The Black Rose of Halfeti opens with a letter delivered at midnight in Ankara, Turkey. In this letter, an elderly doctor who has begun to experience the first signs of dementia professes his love and desire for a relationship with the narrator, a woman in middle age beginning to contemplate her own mortality. From there, the novel moves between Mardin, Izmir, and Ankara; the past and the present; and the real and the imagined as the narrator seeks to know the doctor both in his prime and in his struggle to hold senility at bay. In these dreamlike landscapes, the author effortlessly introduces King Darius, the Spanish director Luis Bunuel, the actress Silvia Pinal, and the archetypal dream woman as the narrator's guides in her efforts to understand the human psyche. Nazli Eray has established herself as a master of magical realism, the perfect tool to bring to life this poignant meditation on love, aging, and the role of memory. And, as in her earlier novels, she paints vivid images of the urban landscapes of Turkey, capturing both the present and the past.

#32

The Sky That Denied Me

Selected Poems

2020

Born in 1953 in the small village of Sultaniyeh in south Lebanon, Jawdat Fakhreddine is considered one of the most prominent members of the second generation of modernist Arab poets. Influenced by a childhood bond with nature, the southern landscape of his village, and early readings of classical Arabic poetry, Fakhreddine’s poems bring into conversation modern preoccupations and the Arab poetic tradition. These twenty poems, translated by Fakhreddine’s daughter, Huda, along with translator Roger Allen, form an intimate dialogue between poet and reader, exploring such personal terrain as marriage, fatherhood, and the loss of a parent. Using simple, elegant language, Fakhreddine maintains subtle tensions within these poems, transforming the mundane, the domestic, and the everyday into poetic linguistic events.

Authors

Nazlı Eray, Ankara'da doğdu. İngiliz Kız Ortaokulu, Arnavutköy Amerikan Kız Koleji ve İstanbul Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi'nde okuduktan sonra Turizm ve Tanıtma Bakanlığı'nda tercüman olarak çalıştı. Edebiyatçılar Derneği'nin kurucuları arasında yer alan Eray, Türkiye Yazarlar Sendikası'nın kurucusu, Uluslararasi Yazarlar Birligi (PEN) üyesi, 1977 ve 1978 yıllarında Yaratıcı Yazım dersleri verdigi ABD Iowa Üniversitesi'nin onursal üyesidir. Yazmaya 1959'da henüz ortaokuldayken kaleme aldığı öyküsü "Mösyö Hristo" ile başlayan Eray'ın ilk öykü kitabı Ah Bayım Ah 1975'te çıktı. "Laz Bakkal" başta olmak üzere pek çok öyküsü kültleşti. "Karanfil Gece Kursu" öyküsüyle 1988 Haldun Taner Öykü Ödülü'nü, kazandı. Aşkı Giyinen Adam romanıyla 2002 Yunus Nadi Roman Ödülü'nü kazandı. Eski Güneş, Cumhuriyet, Radikal, Akşam gibi gazetelerde köşe yazarlığı yapan Eray, yazılarını "Düş İşleri Bülteni" ve "Gece Uçuşu" isimleri altında yayınladı. Türk Kütüpahaneciler Derneği En İyi Romancı Ödülü (2009), Başkent Rotary Kulübü Meslek Ödülü (2010) ve Fantazya ve Bilimkurgu Sanatları Dernegi'nin ilk Mavi Anka Ödülü'ne (2014) layık görüldü. azlı Eray'ın öykü, roman ve oyunları pek çok dile çevrildi. Erostratus (1977) adlı oyunu, Sartre, Montaigne, Camus, Unamuno, Pessoa ve Bauer'in Erostratos yorumlarıyla birlikte Blood and lnk'te (Kan ve Mürekkep) yer aldı, Öykülerinden, kısa film ve televizyon dizileri yapıldı. "Monte Kristo" ve "Rüya Sokağı" öyküleri 2005'te İtalyan yönetmen Angelo Savelli tarafindan L'ultimo Harem (Son Harem) adıyla oyunlaştırıldı, İtalya ve Türkiye'de sahnelendi. Nazlı Eray, anılarını Tozlu Altın Kafes (DK, Ocak 2011) ve Bir Rüya Gibi Hatırlıyorum Seni (DK, Mayis 2013) adlarıyla kitaplaştırdı.

Ibrahim al-Koni

Author · 31 books

Ibrahim al-Koni (Arabic: إبراهيم الكوني) is a Libyan writer and one of the most prolific Arabic novelists. Born in 1948 in Fezzan Region, Ibrahim al-Koni was brought up on the tradition of the Tuareg, popularly known as "the veiled men" or "the blue men." Mythological elements, spiritual quest and existential questions mingle in the writings of al-Koni who has been hailed as magical realist, Sufi fabulist and poetic novelist. He spent his childhood in the desert and learned to read and write Arabic when he was twelve. Al-Koni studied comparative literature at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow and then worked as a journalist in Moscow and Warsaw. By 2007, al-Koni had published more than 80 books and received numerous awards. All written in Arabic, his books have been translated into 35 languages. His novel Gold Dust appeared in English in 2008.

See also the English version of this profile Ibrahim al-koni ولـد بغدامس ليبيا عـام1948 .أنهـى دراستـه الإبتدائية بغدامس، والإعدادية بسبها، والثانوية بموســكو، حـصل على الليسانس ثم الماجستير فـى العلوم الأدبيّة والنقدية من معهـد غوركى لــلأدب العــالمـي بموسكـو.1977 يجيد تسع لغات وكتب ستين كتاب حتى الآن، يقوم عمله الادبي الروائي على عدد من العناصر المحدودة، على عالم الصحراء بما فيه من ندرة وامتداد وقسوة وانفتاح على جوهر الكون والوجود. وتدور معظم رواياته على جوهر العلاقة التي تربط الإنسان بالطبيعة الصحراوية وموجوداتها وعالمها المحكوم بالحتمية والقدر الذي لا يُردّ. بعض المناصب التي تقلدها

عمل بوزارة الشئون الإجتماعية بسبها ثم وزارة الإعلام والثقافة - مراسل لوكالة الأنباء الليبية بموسكو 1975 - مندوب جمعية الصداقة الليبية البولندية بوارسو 1978. - رئيس تحرير مجلة الصداقة البولندية 1981.- مستشار بالسفارة الليبية بوارسو 1978. - مستشار إعلامي بالمكتب الشعبي الليبي (السفارة الليبية) بموسكو 1987. - مستشار إعلامي بالمكتب الشعبي الليبي(السفارة الليبية) بسويسرا 1982. الجوائز التي حصل عليها
جائزة الدولة السويسرية، على رواية" نزيف الحجر" 1995م. - جائزة الدولة في ليبيا، على مجمل الأعمال 1996م.
جائزة اللجنة اليابانية للترجمة، على رواية " التبر" 1997م. - جائزة التضامن الفرنسية مع الشعوب الأجنبية، على رواية" واو الصغرى" 2002م. - جائزة الدولة السويسرية الاستثنائية الكبرى، على مجمل الأعمال المترجمة إلى الألمانية، 2005م. - جائزة الرواية العربية( المغرب)، 2005م. - جائزة رواية الصحراء( جامعة سبها – ليبيا) 2005م. - وسام الفروسية الفرنسي للفنون والآداب 2006م. لقاء الجزيرة مع الأستاذ إبراهيم الكوني - برنامج لقاء خاص http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5j4Z6...