Can the rhythm of a poem mimic the frantic hooves of horses carrying away the dead? Assistant Professor Emily Drumsta to explores the rich history of Arabic literature, the evolution of the Arabic novel, and her deep-dive into literary translation. The conversation centers on the life, political shifting, and meticulous criticism of pioneering Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika. Drumsta discusses her book Revolt Against the Sun, sharing her unique approach to translating qualitative meter and capturing the haunting soundscapes of modern Arabic poetry.
Can the rhythm of a poem mimic the frantic hooves of horses carrying away the dead? Assistant Professor Emily Drumsta to explores the rich history of Arabic literature, the evolution of the Arabic novel, and her deep-dive into literary translation. The conversation centers on the life, political shifting, and meticulous criticism of pioneering Iraqi poet Nazik al-Malaika. Drumsta discusses her book Revolt Against the Sun, sharing her unique approach to translating qualitative meter and capturing the haunting soundscapes of modern Arabic poetry.
01:00 Introduction
06:04 The History of the Novel
14:50 An Introduction to Nazik al-Malaika and her Prolific Criticism
17:35 The Literary Roots
25:56 The Rhythm of Tragic Soundscapes
28:55 The Complicated Evolution of Nationalistic Philosophy
35:31 Reflection on later life, Legacy, and Judgment of Contemporaries
38:46 Crafting Verse in Translation
45:07 Reviving Classical Metres and Concluding Recommendations
Emily Drumsta is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, specializing in modern Arabic and Francophone literatures. She is the translator of Revolt Against the Sun: Selected Poems of Nazik al-Mala'ika (Saqi Books) and a co-founder of Tahrir Documents, an online archive of broadsides, pamphlets, and other ephemera collected in Cairo's Tahrir Square during the 2011 uprisings in Egypt. She has articles and chapters published or forthcoming in Middle Eastern Literatures, Social Text, Research in African Literatures, and The Routledge Handbook of Arabic Translation. Her translations have appeared in McSweeney's, Circumference, Jadaliyya, Asymptote, Arabic Literature (in English), and the Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.
Connect with Emily Drumsta 👉 https://vivo.brown.edu/display/edrumsta
Hosted by Mikey Muhanna 👉 https://instagram.com/mikey_mu
Theme music: Peninsular, Tarek Yamani 🔊 https://spoti.fi/47I59ns