Susan Harris and Chat Post + Readings - Suis

 I really enjoyed Susan Harris and Chad Post’s talk. What really stood out to me as admirable is the very early goal that Words Without Borders held in their role as representatives for international literature and culture as a whole. Chad Post said that “we know so much of the world through a strictly political prism,” that the opinions we form of a certain race or country are informed by the media/news outlets. I hadn’t thought about how true this is, even for me. Susan Harris talked about how early on, when Words Without Borders worked with monthly subscriptions, that each release had a theme. They focused on introducing, through translated literature, a better view on the countries that were being represented through a negative lens in the American media due to war, etc. I find these efforts so admirable. Susan Harris said that “literature is the best way to know about the world,” and I find that so optimistic, and inspiring when thinking about literary translation. I wish this idea was more widespread. I really admire the work the two of them are doing for translators and translated literature.

I enjoyed the readings for this week and the introductions aided my understanding of the texts. I particularly enjoyed reading “A Lesson in Insight.” Huda Fakhreddine’s notes on her translation for this piece was particularly of interest to me. She justifies her translation of a work that has already been translated into English many times by her use of the “the tercet,” arguing that this shorter stanza form is better representative of the poem’s “playful and at times sarcastic” tone (393). I enjoyed her reading of the poem’s sarcastic tone, and her rendition of the word “man” in the first stanza. This makes me want to read the other translations to see how the tone differs in them. (I looked for them but couldn’t find them…) This also makes me think about the requirements for a second translation of a work/works. (That it must be different, and informed by the previous translations, etc.)

I also really loved “Birds of Poetry” by Jawdat Fakhreddine. Its themes of displacement and homesickness read so beautifully. It makes me want to learn Arabic to see how it reads in the original. (Though I will say, the metaphors in this poem lost me a bit.) My favorite lines are: “Homes have abandoned us, / with us still inside them” and “...the word ‘country,’ as the dictionary tells us, / may be, through its people, a home, / and it may be so without them. / It may be simply soil. / The country, our country, has become a wasteland.” This makes me recall what Susan Harris said, that we learn about other countries through their literature, that this poem represents the “voices of [Fakhreddine’s] Pre-Islamic, early Islamic … forefathers” (vii).