Arabic literature can be translated inasmuch as it has to be translated. Why? Because the reality Arabs encounter stretches beyond the Arab World, and thus does not fit the orderly context the Arabic language requires to keep on being as categorical as it has been for centuries.
The price a nation has to pay for boasting a language carved in stone is the cumbersomeness of its notions. But first, before Arabs face the Sphinx, they have to make sure they recognize both their mother tongue and their fatherland. We are just here to provide a space where they can shelve their paralysis by putting their stances into perspective.
Contemporary Arabic Literature, translated into English
She was grateful. A big mountain rose above her, and behind it, one settled by good God-fearing people. The road leading there had been a rather bumpy one; it was infested by apostates. The lights of the city stretching between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim shone, at times, like the bling on a bedazzled wedding […]
The fountain with the statue of a naked woman rising out of it, close to the old mosque and in the middle of the beautiful city of Sétif, was built a year before he was born. He doesn’t like it. According to him, it mars the city’s appearance, because it signifies the values that were […]
