Bilingual Readings in Arabic Poetry and Prose to Be Held This Friday

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Clockwise from top left: Paula Haydar, Adnan Haydar, Nadine Sinno and Michael Beard.

The World Languages & Digital Humanities Studio will host Bilingual Readings in Arabic and Persian Poetry and Prose this Friday, April 21. The event will feature translators Adnan Haydar (professor, Arabic, U of A), Michael Beard (professor emeritus, English, University of North Dakota), Nadine Sinno (associate professor, Arabic, Virginia Tech) and Paula Haydar (associate professor, Arabic, U of A), who will read from their own translations.

This event will be held in J.B. Hunt Center room 207 from 12:30-2 p.m. Friday, April 21, with refreshments provided. 

Adnan Haydar will read a variety of selections from classical and modern Arabic poetry, including samplings from the poetry of Said Aql, Adonis, Khalil Hawi, Henri Zoghaib, Abu Tammam, Abu Nuwas and Khalil Gibran. Beard will read an Iranian folk-tale entitled Hanbuneh Jân that was collected in the late 1960s in a village named Varzaneh (ورزانه), west of Na'in ( نائین ) in Esfahan province. Both Adnan Haydar and Beard will read from their published poetry co-translations spanning nearly 50 years of collaboration that have appeard in book form as well as prestigious literary magazines such as The New Yorker and Banipal. 

Sinno will read from her recently published novel in translation, I Saw Her In My Dreams, by Omani writer Huda Hamed (UT Press, 2023). Paula Haydar will read from two of her recently published novels in translation, The King of India, by Lebanese author Jabbour Douaihy (Interlink, 2022) and Bitter Oranges, by Lebanese author Basma Elkhatib (HBKU Press, 2022). Paula Haydar and Sinno will also read from their two co-translated novels, Jabbour Douaihy's Firefly (Seagull Press, 2022) and Rashid Al-Daif's Who's Afraid of Meryl Streep? (UT Press, 2014).

Readings will be followed by an open discussion. Refreshments for the body will also be served. The Friday event will take place on campus in JBHT 207 from 12:30 - 2 p.m. The Friday event is targeting a student audience to promote language (especially Arabic) studies to the advanced levels and beyond.

TYPOFEST Reading Event on Saturday, April 22
Similar to Friday's event, there will also be a bilingual reading on Saturday, April 22, as a part of TYPOFEST — an event held off campus at Mount Sequoyah organized by TYPO Magazine. Saturday's panel will focus on collaboration and working relationships and will feature readings and panels on various literary topics, with numerous poets, writers, translators and scholars, both local and from around the country, in attendance. The schedule of events for TYPOFEST is available for those interested.

"Translating Together: Readings from Arabic Poetry & Prose in Co-Translation" (followed by discussion)

Date: Saturday, April 22
Time & Location: 9-9:45 a.m.
Clapp Auditorium, Mount Sequoyah, 150 N. Skyline Dr.

Panelists

Michael Beard, emeritus professor of English (University of North Dakota), writes frequently about Persian, and sometimes Arabic, literature. He has a particular interest in translation. With Adnan Haydar, he co-edits the series Middle East Litarature in Translation for Syracuse University Press. He has collaborated frequently with Haydar on translations of Arabic poetry. The best known is probably Mihyar of Damascus, His Poems (2008), a translation of a 1961 collection by the Syrian/Lebanese poet Adonis. It won the Lois Roth award for translation in 2009. He has also translated, in collaboration with Ahmad Karimi Hakkak and with the late Karim Emami, the poems of the late Iranian film-maker Abbas Kiarostami. His book on the Iranian writer Sadeq Hedayat, Hedayat's Blind Owl as a Western Novel, has recently been translated into Persian. 

Adnan Haydar is head of the Arabic section in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and professor of Arabic and comparative literature at the U of A, where he also founded and directed the King Fahd Middle East Studies Center from 1993 to 1999. His fields of specialization and areas of teaching include modern and classical Arabic literature, Arabic language, folk literature and oral poetry. He has authored, co-authored and co-edited eight books and is co-editor of the translation series for Syracuse University Press. His many articles on modern literary theory and oral poetry have appeared in premier literary journals. 

Paula Haydar is associate professor of Arabic in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the U of A. She has translated numerous contemporary Arabic novels by Lebanese, Palestinian and Jordanian writers into English. Her most recent translations include two additional novels by the late Lebanese literary giant Jabbour Douaihy (The King of India, Interlink Publishing, 2022, and Firefly (Sharīd al-manāzil) co-translated with Nadine Sinno, Seagull Books, 2022) and debut novel, Bitter Oranges, by Lebanese writer Basma Elkhatib (HBKU Press, 2022). She is currently working on Douaihy's last novel, Poison in the Air, to be published by Interlink (2023). She received her MFA in literary translation (1998) and PhD in comparative literature (2014) from the U of A.

Nadine Sinno is associate professor of Arabic at Virginia Tech. Her scholarly interests include modern Arabic literature and cultural studies and literary translation. Her recent publications include a co-translation of Jabbour Douaihy's Firefly (Seagull, 2022) with Paula Haydar and a co-translation of Huda Hamed's She Who Counts the Stairs (University of Texas Press, 2023) with William Taggart. Her scholarly work has appeared in journals including The Journal of Arabic Literature, The Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, Middle East Critique and Middle Eastern Literatures.