Literature
Cancellation of the “LiBeraturpreis” award ceremony for the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli
Confusing a Palestinian writer with Hamas fighters is a rare stupidity, a dangerous amalgam. We encourage our readers to discover Adania Shibli’s sensitive prose in the articles she wrote for our website over a decade ago.
2023-10-15
About Translation and Encounters: “Bejn baħar u baħar” - بين بحر وبحر
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.
2023-03-28
Transmitting the pleasure of reading to children
Reading stories out loud to newborns and continue even after they learn to read by themselves is the best recipe to prepare children for reading. All kinds of stories with illustrations and pictures from a large variety of books from fiction to poetry and if and when possible, reading in different languages. This not only enables them to bond with parents and relate to emotions but also to develop language and listening skills. I believe it is essential to seek balance between guiding them, helping them associate letters, words with images, objects, and sounds and at the same time allowing space for their imagination to be nourished.
2020-01-27
The challenge of translating poetry
Translating poetry is an act of creativity. It is a complex work consisiting of making continuous choices, not only of words, but also of colours, smells, sounds and texture to give to a poem when translating it from one language to another, from a culture to another, from a world to another. It is also a way of wearing the skin of the author himself (like an actor does), trying to absorb the emotions before carving them out in of words in another language without knowing beforehand the forms they may take, the picture they will draw. There are of course numerous challenges to this including the translation of metaphors, rthythm, rhyme, onomatopoeia. In another language these aspects might be flat so one needs to recreate others to compensate and maintain poetic balance. Translating poetry is also a very subjective activity and everything depends on the sensibility of the translator. A poem translated by five different people will be in five different versions.
2020-01-26
“Poetry is the common language of humanity”
Ataol Behramo?lu, one of the leading Turkish poets and political critics, had an anthology of his poems translated into Italian for the first time. In an interview with Babelmed, Behramo?lu says poetry is “the common language of humanity” and can help bring people from different countries together.
2014-07-19
Wind from the South, poetry on climate change
Alternating their poetry with prose contributions from fellow members of civil society, Grima and Mifsud (2 Maltese poets) consolidate their faith in the power of literature in a seminal volume carrying contemporary Maltese verse at once beyond and closer to home.
2009-12-19
Rakkmu, writing poetry to tell stories
On 1st March 2006 Adrian Grima launched his third collection of poetry, Rakkmu (embroidery), to an audience of readers, writers and friends at the St James Cavalier theatre-in-the-round in Valletta. Adrian finds that his poetry is too often seen in the light of his socially engaged commitments at the cost of not being read for the words and images and emotions it recalls and conjures up anew.
2006-03-20
The Constant Dilemma of Writing Poetry I
Immanuel Mifsud talks to Adrian Grima about writing in Maltese, his “leading writer” tag, Sara Sue Sammut, the disillusions of the post-communist era in Eastern Europe, the two Bratislavas, the fragility beneath fallen leaves, and his poet friend and translator, Maria Grech Ganado.
2005-01-22
