Welcome

Absinthe: World Literature in Translation is a literary magazine that emphasizes publishing works previously untranslated to English. We publish fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Owned and operated by the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Absinthe is edited by graduate students, as well as by occasional guest editors. 

Purchase our most recent issue, “Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration,” here.

Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Absinthe 28: Orphaned of Light features contemporary literature of migration translated from and to Arabic. In short stories, creative nonfiction essays, poetry, and selections from novels, a multiplicity of migration experiences is brought to the fore: life in diaspora, undocumented labor, refugeehood, human trafficking, internal displacement, exile.

This issue brings together names familiar to readers of Arabic literature in translation, such as Ghassan Kanafani and Saadi Youssef, with writers making their English-language debuts, such as Dearborn, MI-based Kurdish Iraqi poet Gulala Nouri and Libyan novelist Mohamad Alasfar. Likewise, the issue includes veteran translators Marilyn Booth, Nancy Roberts, and Khaled Mattawa alongside newcomers, several of them graduate students at the University of Michigan.

Each piece is accompanied by a translator’s reflection that meditates on the work’s themes as well as the creative process of translation, and the issue’s poetry is presented in a side-by-side Arabic-English format.

Absinthe 28 comes to us at a time when, according to the UN, one in every 78 people on earth is displaced. This collection serves as a reminder that translation and migration are inextricably linked.

Article


Acknowledgments

Graham Liddell

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Introduction

Graham Liddell

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

The Stolen Shirt

Ghassan Kanafani and Michael Fares

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

From Safe Corridor

Jan Dost and Marilyn Booth

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

From Fatima’s Harbor

Haji Jabir and Nancy Roberts

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Poems by Gulala Nouri

Gulala Nouri and Ali Harb

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Poems by Becky Thompson

Becky Thompson and Mootacem B. Mhiri

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Poems by Saadi Youssef

Saadi Youssef and Khaled Mattawa

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Poems by Sara Abou Rashed

Sara Abou Rashed

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

From Journal of a Clandestine Migrant by Rachid Niny

Richid Niny and Angela Haddad

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Her, Him, and Gaza

Nisma Alaklouk and Julia Schwartz

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Diary of a Depressed Syrian in Germany

Muhammad Diab and Graham Liddell

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

From Dates and Wild Artichokes

Mohamad Alasfar and James Vizthum

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

Contributors

Absinthe Editors

2022-12-14 Volume 28 • 2022 • Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration

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