Featuring "19 Moroccan Poets" guest edited by Guy Bennett & Jalal El Hakmaoui
The well regarded American magazine Aufgarbe has been around since 2001 and has built its reputation on publishing experimental and innovative poetry. While much of the content has been new American poetry, essays, reviews and talks, it has also featured the translation of worldwide poetry, namely French, German, Mexican and Japanese poetry.
For this edition, Aufgabe proposes various poems written by little known Moroccan poets to give a glimpse of the breadth and richness of contemporary Moroccan poetry and encourage further exploration.
The featured poems were translated from Arabic by the Moroccan translator Hassan Hilmy and from French by Guy Bennett, in collaboration with the Moroccan poet Jalal El Hakmaoui, who works to make the Moroccan culture and poetry known worldwide.
In so doing, El Hakmaoui gave this edition a historical overview about the contemporary Moroccan poetry, presenting to the American readership the contemporary Moroccan literature which is far from being well known in the US.
The Moroccan participants in this issue are Mahmoud Abdelghani, Mehdi Akhrif, Ahmed Barakat, Ahmed Belbdaoui, Rajae Benchemsi, Mohammed Bentalha, Omar Berrada, Jalal El Hakmaoui and Mohamed Hmoudane.
Wafaa Lamrani, Mohamed Loakira, Rachida Madani, Zohra Mansouri, Mohamed Meimouni, Hassan Najmi, Mostafa Nissabouri, Abdel-Illah Salhi, Abdelkarim Tabbal and Mubarak Wassat are also among the Moroccan guests of this edition.
Commenting on the old friendship relations between Morocco and the US, Bennett wished that by shedding light on the Moroccan poetry, the already existing friendship would extend into the literary arena.
Aufgabe aims at fostering poetic interaction and dialogue not only in the States but also, through translation, across international boundaries.
Translation in this field plays a vital role in spreading knowledge and culture specificities worldwide. Though the difficulties faced by translators to convert the same meaning and image into another language, the challenge is arisen to make of poetry a universal pleasure shared by people from different culture and speaking different languages.
In other literary news:
Moroccan Abdelkader Fassi Fihri received, jointly with Egyptian Tammam Hassan Omar, the King Faisal International Prize in the section concerning the Arabic language and literature "The Arabic Language in Modern Linguistics."Secretary general of the prize, Abdallah As-Saleh Al-Othaymin, said the award was granted to Fihri "in recognition of his detailed pursuit of modern linguistic theories, and efforts to reconstruct the classical Arabic linguistic theory in the light of modern linguistic concepts."
As to Hassan Omar, he was compensated for "his distinguished efforts - over the past fifty years - to establish modern Arabic linguistics," said Al-Othaymin.
The Fès-born Moroccan linguist, 62, is now director of the Institute for Study and Research of Arabization and professor of Arabic and Comparative Linguistics, in Mohammed V University, Rabat.
King Faisal International Prize was created in 1977. It is awarded to those who deploy considerable efforts to serve Islam and Muslims.
Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
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