Arabic | Iraq | Memoir (excerpt) | Sweden
January, 2020Dr. Manhal Sirat was born in Mosul, Iraq, and has lived in Sweden since 1991. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Mosul in 1977 and his M.S. in Geology from Baghdad University in 1982, graduating first in his class. He was then arrested and sentenced to life in prison by a Revolutionary Court. He was imprisoned in a special section of Abu Ghraib prison, one reserved for political prisoners. He was released under a general amnesty proclaimed in 1986, after serving forty-five months in prison. He left Iraq after the Desert Storm (aka Gulf) War and sought political asylum in Sweden. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Earth Sciences by the renowned Uppsala University in 1999. Since then he has worked in numerous universities in Sweden, the US, Jordan, Germany, and finally in the United Arab Emirates. He has also served as a petroleum expert for the international firm Schlumberger in the UAE, and as a Geomechanics and Alternative Energy Specialist for the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Operations and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Currently he is a geological and renewable energy consultant in Sweden. He has published three scientific books and more than forty articles in scientific journals.
The Migratory Bird is Manhal Sirat’s first literary work. A book of his poetry is awaiting publication. He has exhibited works of art in several shows, and one of these was purchased for the Public Library in Uppsala.
- William Hutchins
One day, a package appeared in my mailbox: brown paper-wrapped with a dozen mismatched stamps from a secondhand bookseller in Sweden. A surprise birthday gift.
With a little reverence and my heart making skippy hops, I opened it. Translated the epigraph, then immediately determined to translate the entire book. It seemed the poet was speaking directly to me and to my life--across oceans and decades, but there she was in my living room. Marie Lundquist and her 1992 debut collection I Walk Around Gathering Up My Garden for the Night.
Said poet Adam Zagajewski, “[Lundquist’s work has] the purity of the still-lifes of great masters . . . in them, we hear the world tremble.”
These taut, image-driven, aphoristic poems speak in a contemporary voice especially suited to the sound-byte era, and offer clarity and stillness in a frenetic world.
Lundquist has a cinematic eye, not surprising given her experience and interest in photography and dramaturgy. Some poems almost read as stage directions without dialogue. The poems regularly surprise, in quick turns of thought and image: one might suddenly stumble across Judas, a Greek frieze, firefighters, or an old-time circus troupe.
While the emotional terrain explored is intense, devastating even, Lundquist’s tone remains arms-length. The voice is calm but never seeks to comfort. She can be ironic but not cynical. Much of her work carries an erotic charge. Brilliantly, she appropriates scientific or pseudo-scientific language; with the stance of an anthropologist, she makes our own culture seem strange.
Her poems carry a sense of authority and urgency. The logic is sophisticated and clear, not a word wasted or poorly chosen. Each poem quietly accretes in a deep place and the reader ends the book feeling transported, a bit stunned even.
Though her voice is distinctly her own, at times I felt a kinship with Sexton and Szymborska. Or heard echoes of other Swedish poets: Tomas Tranströmer, Edith Södergran, Sonja Åkesson. Then there were moments when I could feel Lydia Davis and Herta Müller.
Strong praise attended the publication of this collection. The reviews frequently commented on her use of language, calling it “inventive,” “skilled,” “a sharp needle,” and “as clear as a running brook, characterized by sensualism and an elegant melancholy.”
Reviews noted the frequent shifts from the everyday world to the surreal and mythological. They lauded her treatment of such fraught topics as longing and shame, ambiguity around gender roles, the pull of memory and the problems of adult love. Her unique style was highlighted as well as her well-drawn and distinct imagery. Reviewers called the book “amazing,” and “fantastic.” Said Marianne Steinsaphir, “[Her] poems open up every time I read them, words that show the [possibilities] of language.” Said Eva Ottosson, “Her poetry… in short, is the kind you’d gladly get lost in.”
- Kristina Andersson Bicher
Oddly enough, I first entertained the idea of translating poetry while reading Hegel's Lectures on Aesthetics. I say "oddly" because it is a tract whose aesthetic import is predominantly restricted to its allegations concerning the end of art and--as far as I know--rarely referenced in expositions of literary aspirations. Hegel also, however, opines briefly on “bad poetry,” that is to say prosaic thought coerced into poetic form, and its opposition to true poetry, which is of course a unified act of poiesis. It is from these--albeit enigmatic--musings that I believe two conflicting ideals can be derived and subsequently made available to the translator who finds themselves faced with the challenge of translating poetry: the translated poem and the poetic translation. For me, this aspirational bifurcation is not a difficult one to approach; I would much rather be remembered as an adequate translator than a poetaster, and as such it is towards the poetic translation (and to a form fitting of the translation) that I aim. With ends thus determined there are certain repercussions that permeate directly into questions of form versus sense. This dialectic is, I believe, especially pertinent when attempting to translate Edith Södergran with the reverence this particular poet is due. There is a poem by another canonical Swedish poet, Karin Boye, that I like to imagine, despite a conspicuous lack of philological or historical evidence, is in fact an ode to Södergran and her poetry. The second stanza closes with the following lines:
A redness hovers
behind paleness of cheek.
A sea of fire burns
in secret
where no one knows,
where no one reaches.
It is these words (reminiscent of when Södergran herself--in the guise of the last flower of autumn--proclaims, “red flames erupted on my white cheek”) I have tried to keep somewhere in the back of my mind when working with Södergran’s works; it is this eruption, this sea of fire burning below the surface, that I have attempted to know, and to reach, when translating Södergran; and it is a dedication to this sense which I believe justifies certain formal sacrifices. All this is not to say that I believe myself to have a kind of supernatural ability to grasp the artistic intentions of a consciousness not my own, an ability to once and for all unearth the true meaning of Södergran’s poems. What I am referring to is the sense that Edith Södergran has for me (as an avid reader and aspiring translator). In my eyes, the true sense of Edith Södergran is not that of the meek victim, one subject to a fate decided by debilitating illness and crippling circumstance; rather it is that of the wickedly ironic benefactor of conditions beyond her control, conditions she would continue to vigorously resist despite no hope of victory. I hope that a dedication to just this sense has allowed me to render poetic translations worthy of Edith Södergran the poet.
- Nicholas Lawrence
You’re going to read a Swedish play. Heavy. You’re thinking Ingmar Bergman, deep symbolism, whispers and cries, anguish, suicide, maybe some blonde sex in the sauna. Think again. The world of Sofia Fredén is more closely related to Larry David’s. Bergman’s characters are silent and closed. Sofia’s are open and naïve. They wear their psychology on the outside. They say what they feel. They are refreshingly selfish when you consider their context: a chilly, grey, and silent country where the motto, until quite recently, was “Duty above all else.” White Baby is a political comedy about a group of people who can’t seem to make place in their lives for a child. Most of it you’ll understand. But you probably won’t recognize similarities between the character Eva and Mona Sahlin, the present leader of Sweden’s social democratic party. You’ll listen to the scene in the postal service centre unaware that Post Offices have been completely phased out in Sweden and you’ll think it more absurd than we would when a character at the social service office asks to have his welfare check forwarded to Africa. Sweden and the U.S. are a bit different. We can’t help that. I am a great fan of Ms. Fredén and her work. White Baby is the fourth play of hers that I’ve translated. The earliest of rough drafts was workshopped at a theatre I ran about eight years ago. Three years ago Sofia and I took a version to a playwright’s colony in a nunnery in Winnipeg where she worked on it some more. Sofia has written about a dozen other plays while White Baby was in progress, so it had to wait until less than a year ago to get finished. It opened February 2007 at Göteborg Stadsteater.
(Edward Buffalo Bromberg)
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We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
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