All posts tagged: Issue 21 Translation

Translation: Poems by Lara Solórzano Damasceno

Translation: Poems by Lara Solórzano Damasceno

July 1, 2021 ,


Poems by LARA SOLÓRZANO DAMASCENO
Translated from the Spanish by IGNACIO CARVAJAL

Poems appear in both Spanish and English.

Recife, Brazil

Translator’s Note

Lara Solórzano’s poetry is a contestation, a reprieve from fear. Her work exhibits a precise aesthetic and a fundamental grounding in urgency. Historical memory characterizes every figure and spirit in the verses that name societal constraints faced by women. Along with that naming of violences—and ultimately more important than it—the poems ring with an unequivocal rejection of them. It honors me to offer these translations from the collection El bestiario de las falenas.
—Ignacio Carvajal


Translation: Poems by Lara Solórzano Damasceno
Read more...
The Ache of the Sands

The Ache of the Sands

April 26, 2021 , , , ,

By ABDELAZIZ ERRACHIDI
Translated by NARIMAN YOUSSEF 

The Bedouin’s Journey

I know a man whose heart is instructed in Bedouin life. He knows the desert and its moods, and has learned early on that it doesn’t like to be challenged. I know him walking without pause, teaching his feet and his heart the ways, walking slowly and deliberately, the trails trembling beneath him. Aimlessly he digs into the sand of the earth and settles nowhere, for his early existence taught him that a real Bedouin doesn’t settle except in death. He may pause, but if he does, life sneaks up on him with its poison. With every pause comes an ache. The trick is not to overcome life’s problems, but to understand its laws. 

The Ache of the Sands
Read more...
The Seventh

The Seventh

April 26, 2021 , , , ,

By MOHAMED ZAFZAF
Translated by ALICE GUTHRIE

 

—We simply must get a band in to play at the women’s section of the party. A party’s nothing without drumming and dancing.

—If my first wife demanded that of me, I would never have granted her wish. But you…you know the place you have in my heart.

Nuwara was twenty-two years old, slight, and a little snub-nosed. What made up for that, however, was the rosy bloom of her cheeks and the existence of that exquisite mole between her left cheekbone and her nose. And although her clothed body didn’t stand out as anything special, when she was naked and in the hands of a man, she became a real woman. She was tastier than any fantasy, as sweet as a ripe fruit out of season. Any man could see that. That’s why Ahmed was saying to her now:

—You know I give in to all your demands. But a male band performing to a group of women? I can’t imagine that.

The Seventh
Read more...