One of PalFest's first participants has taken on a pen-name for the new series of Cairo-set detective novels, the Makana Mysteries. Read the overwhelmingly positive user reviews - then buy a copy - on Amazon here.
PalFest's temporary home until we launch our new bi-lingual website on Thursday May 3rd.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
New Najwan Darwish translation online
This translation of Najwan Darwish's poem 'Like These Trees' has just been published by the Free Word Centre
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Kol HaMusica by Najwan Darwish [English translation]
Kol HaMusica
1
Our enemies call the piano ‘psanter’ …
How long have these psanters been striking
in the wake of the sleeping dead?
How long have they continued their transmission from
the station ‘Kol HaMusica’
while their planes shell the Southern Suburb of Beirut
and bomb a three-room home in Jabalia Camp?
The psanters
that never ceased to hunt him down
to the darkness of the other bank.
The psanters
that now strike with an icy drone.
The psanters
The psanters
He will carry on calling them in the enemy’s language
until the musical instrument desists from partaking in the crime.
2
‘The piano is the grandchild of the Qanun.’
This is a historical fact,
it has nothing to do with these psanters
that now slash my face with razor blades.
The occupiers do not care for stories of blood or dynasties,
to them the piano is but a foundling they call the ‘psanter’.
3
Sometimes I think that soldiers killed the pianists,
and generals are now playing inside the records.
Translated by Lubna Fahoum
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)