Jadaliyya Co-Editor Sinan Antoon Wins 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Translation Prize

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Jan 21, 2015 Iraq
[Cover of \"The Corpse Washer.\" Image from Yale University Press] [Cover of \"The Corpse Washer.\" Image from Yale University Press]

Jadaliyya Co-Editor Sinan Antoon Wins 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Translation Prize

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[Jadaliyya co-editor Sinan Antoon wins the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for The Corpse Washer. Here are excerpts from the press release]

The 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation was awarded to Sinan Antoon, for his translation of his own novel The Corpse Washer, published by Yale University Press. It is the first time the award goes to a self-translated text.

Paula Haydar is highly commended for her translation of June Rain, by Jabbour Douaihy, published by Bloomsbury Qatar Publishing Foundation. The judging panel comprised literary translator and joint winner of the 2013 Prize Jonathan Wright, translator and writer Lulu Norman, broadcaster and writer Paul Blezard, and Banipal editor and trustee Samuel Shimon. They met in December 2014 to select the winning titles from 17 entries, under the chairmanship of Paula Johnson of the Society of Authors.

The Judges` Announcement:

SINAN ANTOON
for the translation of his novel The Corpse Washer

"A poetic and profound story that resonates with human pathos"

Heart-warming and horrifying, sad and sensuous in equal measure, The Corpse Washer is the moving story of Jawad, a young Iraqi whose family washes and prepares bodies for burial, and of the fracturing effects of war, occupation and civil strife—on Jawad, his family, his friends, and their country. The subject matter is often grim, as befits the tragedies that Iraq has suffered for over three decades, but the meticulous portrayal of the corpse-washing rituals, Jawad`s ambivalent feelings about his work and the other world of his nightly dreams, show a gentler, more human side to a world of violence and brutality.

Thoughtful, precise, and consistent in voice and mood, Sinan Antoon comes close, in this translation of his own novel, to the ideal in literary translation—the invisibility of the translator. His fluent and forthright language matches the style and rhythm of his own original Arabic and the unadorned, sometimes affectless tone reflects the hollowness of life as the onslaught of war brings an onslaught of bodies for the corpse washers of Baghdad. The novel ends with Jawad sitting under the pomegranate tree that grows from the water he uses to wash the corpses. A rich, profound insight into an Iraq we hear very little of, this is a story that resonates with human pathos and bears every hallmark of becoming a modern classic.

On being given news of the award, Yale University Press Director John Donatich said:
"We are very pleased to see Sinan Antoon win this prestigious and deserved award. The Corpse Washer is an uniquely powerful narrative of the damning effects of war on the aspirations of real human lives. The novel is also notable for having been translated into English by its author, a challenge wonderfully met. We hope the award will help bring the book to the attention of new readers who want a viscerally powerful portrait of life in contemporary Iraq."

As both translator and author of the novel, Sinan Antoon reacted to the news by saying: "Writing is never easy and when one writes about death and catastrophe the task becomes even more visceral. The joy of finishing this novel in its Arabic original was followed, as usual, by postpartum pain. I had lived in and with its characters for more than two years and was left bereft of their presence. Translating the novel was the only way to return and inhabit those beings and places once more and to relive their pain and pleasure. It was challenging on many a level, and masochistic at times, but it had its advantages as well. The author and the translator inhabited the same person and could communicate very well most of the time. The novel speaks another language and the text has an afterlife in new readers."

He added: "Translation is a vital act and is underappreciated, especially from languages of the Global South. It is an honour and a pleasure to be awarded this prestigious prize. Both author and translator are delighted."

The Corpse Washer is published by Yale University Press
UK edition: 9780300205640
International edition: ISBN 9780300190601

There were 17 entries for the 2014 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, all novels:

The Mehlis Report by Rabee Jaber, trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid (New Directions)

The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari, trans. Aida Bamia (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing)

Private Pleasures by Hamdy El-Gazzar, trans. Humphrey Davies (AUC Press)

Ben Barka Lane by Mahmoud Saeed, trans. Kay Heikkinen (Interlink Publishing Co.)

Other Lives by Iman Humaydan, trans. Michelle Hartman (Interlink Books)

The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon, trans. Sinan Antoon (Yale University Press)

June Rain by Jabbour Douaihy, trans. Paula Haydar (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing)

Throwing Sparks by Abdo Khal, trans. Maia Tabet and Michael K. Scott (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing

That Smell by Sonallah Ibrahim, trans. Robyn Creswell (New Directions)

House of the Wolf by Ezzat El Kamhawi, trans. Nancy Roberts (AUC Press)

New Waw by Ibrahim al-Koni, trans. William M. Hutchins (University of Texas Press)

Moon and Henna Tree by Ahmed Toufiq, trans. Roger Allen (University of Texas Press)

The Bridges of Constantine by Ahlem Mosteghanemi, trans. Raphael Cohen (Bloomsbury)

Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs by Abdulaziz al Farsi, trans. Nancy Roberts (AUC Press)

Gertrude by Hassan Najmi, trans. Roger Allen (Interlink Books)

Status Emo by Eslam Mosbah, trans. Raphael Cohen (AUC Press)

The Silence and the Roar by Nihad Sirees, trans. Max Weiss (Pushkin Press)

Tuesday 24 February
Sinan Antoon talks with Paul Blezard
6.30pm-9.00pm WATERSTONE’S PICCADILLY
203/206 Piccadilly, London W1J 9HD

with Reading and Q&A. Reception.
For more details, go to Waterstone`s Piccadilly webpage here

This is a free event, but please reserve your place by emailing piccadilly@waterstones.com

Wednesday 25 February
The Award Ceremony of Translation Prizes
 from Arabic, French, German, Greek, Spanish, and Swedish
6.15pm for 6.30pm, Europe House,
32 Smith Square, London SW1P 3EU

Introduced by Paula Johnson, Prize Administrator, the Society of Authors
Prizes presented by Sir Peter Stothard, editor TLS, with readings by the winning translators followed by
Philip Hensher on “Wonderful Translations”
This is a free event, but please reserve your place by emailing marco@banipal.co.uk

The other 2014 literary translation prizes administered by The Society of Authors are for translation from German, French, Italian, and Spanish.

 

You can buy The Corpse Washer in the US by clicking here, and in the UK here.

 
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Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412