Table of Contents

Table of contents

Introduction

1. Modern Arabic Poetry and English Poetry

2. The Arabic Waste Lands

3. Translating Whitman’s Song of Myself into Arabic

4. Al-Sayyab’s Translational Contribution

Conclusion

Bibliography

Promotional Information

Writing on a a significant, yet understudied topic, Ghareeb Iskander examines the relationship between translation and modernity in Arabic and English verse.

About the Author

Ghareeb Iskander is an Iraqi poet and translator living in London. He has published numerous collections of poems including Gilgamesh’s Snake and Other Poems which won Arkansas University’s Arabic Translation Award for 2015 (published by Syracuse University Press in 2016). He translated Derek Walcott’s poems into Arabic. He received his PhD from SOAS, University of London, UK.

Reviews

'This book is less a work of literary criticism than a dialogue between poets. Iskandar, himself a poet, is at his best when he is tracing the grain of multiple translations, phrase by phrase, illuminating subtle differences, between the aesthetic possibilities of English and Arabic, and between the visions of individual poets.'
*Michael Beard, Emeritus Professor of English, University of North Dakota, USA*

Ghareeb Iskander’s English Poetry and Modern Arabic Verse is an erudite and insightful journey into the creative process, a methodic study of how translations of mainly Eliot and Whitman by major Arab poets guided their hands and led them to inaugurate a new poetics in Modern Arabic poetry. A valuable reference work for students of translation theory and Arabic poetry.
*Adnan Fuad Haydar, Professor of Arabic Literature, University of Arkansas, USA*