Literature
Malta
About Translation and Encounters: “Bejn baħar u baħar” - بين بحر وبحر
2023-03-28
The Arabic version of my Maltese poetry collection “Bejn baħar u baħar” (Merlin Publishers, 2019) was published last January 2023 under the title ين بحر وبحر by Sefsafa Publishing. Translated by the talented Maria Pakkala, this publication results from a constellation of encounters over the past years.
Cover of the translation in arabic published in January 2023.
I met the researcher and translator Maria Pakkala in 2012 in Brussels for the first time in the framework of a meeting on “The State of Play of Translation Across the Mediterranean”, organised by Literature Across Frontiers directed by Alexandra Büchler (who I warmly thank) and the Anna Lindh Foundation at Bozar, an artistic and cultural space. I was working as a cultural manager with the René Seydoux Foundation at the time.
With Maria, it was one of those encounters where you follow the person on social media, rejoice with their endeavours and enjoy a little chat every now and then. But with a deep awareness that under the wires of distance and virtuality, there is a bond and it does neither only revolve around common interests, nor it is of a mere intellectual nature but most and above all, it holds the space for a potential friendship.
The magic of human encounters
A couple of years later, we spoke again and she proposed to talk about our project to her editor in Egypt. When she told me his name, it was another confirmation for me, that haphazard encounters do not exist. They are the work of subtle energetic magical movements bringing people together for a purpose we don’t always need to know. I knew Mohamed El Baaly who I met at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival in 2018 where he was invited to share his experience as an editor and also discover other authors. Mohamed was immediately in.
Astrid Alben, poet (UK) reading her translation and Elizabeth Grech at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival in 2019. Photo by Virginia Monteforte for Inizjamed.
Sefsafa Publishing House had already published other translations of works by Maltese authors, including Clare Azzoppardi, Leanne Ellul, Adrian Grima, Alfred Sant and Karl thanks to relations established by Inizjamed (a Maltese NGO striving to promote literature and translation), Literature Across Frontiers and the National Book Council, Malta.
Sefsafa applied for the translation fund of the National Book Council Malta. In the meantime, Maria Pakkala even followed a course in Maltese language at the University of Malta to hone her skills in translating directly from Maltese into Arabic. The translation fund results were out in August 2022. Our project had been approved and بين بحر وبحر was published last January 2023, just in time for the Cairo International Book Fair!
The importance of festivals
I wished to share the experience of this process to highlight the great importance of festivals and other spaces allowing writers to meet editors, publishing houses, literary agents but also other writers to meet other writers and literary translators to meet other translators face-to-face.
The networking made possible by Inizjamed through the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival and Literature Across Frontiers has been very significant in this project and my professional trajectory I must say. This specific festival is one of a kind. With the collaboration of Literature Across Frontiers, a translation workshop is held between the authors during the week following the festival.
This allows writers and poets to translate each other in so many different languages. The reading-performances of the festival are thus based on these translations – the author reads on stage his/her literary works accompanied by others invited authors reading their translation and so on and so forth.
This goes to say that TRANSLATION is CRUCIAL. Maltese literature remains very little known on other shores and this is the only means to reach broader audiences with the aim of sharing different voices.
Personally, I prefer sharing my words, allowing them to inhabit other languages, other cultures, other worlds thanks to the creativity of the translators I collaborate with, giving them the freedom to also share their own voice through the choice of words, than receiving awards.
The greatest gift of all is when someone writes to me to tell me how much they felt the word of “my” poems” echoed in their hearts and became theirs across all geographical and other frontiers.
Last but not least, this project would not have been possible without the Translation Fund of the National Book Council Malta that gives the possibility to make Maltese literature travel thanks to translation and publishing in other languages. I would also love to mention HELA /Hub for Excellence in Literary Arts that has published online, a Directory of Maltese Authors last year intended to be a work in progress – thus enriched with new authors continuously.
More information on my website
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