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Bilingual collection of poems and prose joins young Arabic, Hebrew writers</h1></div><p><span id="dateline" class="">
Jerusalem — </span>A first-of-its-kind bilingual anthology of Hebrew and Arabic prose and poetry has recently been released in <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/csmlists/topic/Israel" title="Title: Israel" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Israel</a>, offering an example of the potential for collaboration despite heightened tensions between Arabs and Jews.</p><p>Unlike
previous translations between the languages, it is published by one of
Israel's leading publishers and focuses on daily life and love as much
as on politics.</p><p>Called "Two," the collection is published by Keter
Publishing House, and aims to launch a dialogue between young,
contemporary writers in both languages. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is unavoidably present in the anthology, but it is not the
dominant theme. The best poems and stories approach political questions
obliquely, framing them in unexpected ways.</p><div class="">
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</div><p>"Love is no less political than politics," says Rajaa Natour, a
poet who has contributed two love poems to the volume. As a Palestinian
with Israeli citizenship, she is part of the country's 20 percent Arab
minority whose experiences are often unfamiliar to the Jewish majority.</p><div id="story-embed-column" class=""><div id="story-inset-0" class=""><div class="">
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</div></div></div><p>"Through the translation, my voice as a
Palestinian woman will reach Jewish women who are not in, and do not
know, my day-to-day life and reveal my emotional world. If I wasn't
translated to Hebrew, I would never reach them."</p><p>The project, begun in 2008, originally included Palestinians from the West Bank and <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/csmlists/topic/Gaza+Strip" title="Title: Gaza Strip" target="_self" class="" rel="nofollow">Gaza Strip</a>
as well. But failed peace initiatives and three Israel-Gaza conflicts
eventually led all of them to withdraw. However, the inclusion of
Palestinians living within Israel still marks a significant
accomplishment, especially given the heightened tensions during last
summer's Gaza war.</p><p>While Arabic literature has been translated
into Hebrew before, and vice versa, those translations have focused on
established authors. "Two" aims to bring together a younger generation
of poets and fiction writers who are unfamiliar to readers of the other
language. The 70+ poems and short stories included in the collection all
appear twice, in the original and in Hebrew or Arabic translation.</p><p>Hebrew
and Arabic share common linguistic roots and a long history of literary
interaction, but in Israel today Hebrew and Arabic readers are largely
unfamiliar with each other's language and literature.</p><p>"The
community of writers in Hebrew and writers in Arabic live in parallel
and publish in parallel, and they hardly meet," says Almog Behar, an
Israeli novelist and poet and one of the book's editors, along with
Tamer Massalha and Tamar Weiss-Gabbay.</p><p>Given the difficult state
of Israeli-Palestinian relations currently, Dr. Behar claims for the
anthology a modest, if hopeful goal.</p>"We don't have any utopian
idea that we're creating a shared literary community," he said. Rather,
the collection can be "a kind of introduction that can generate further
influences and connections."<br clear="all"><br>-- <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/Olive-Press/2015/0201/Bilingual-collection-of-poems-and-prose-joins-young-Arabic-Hebrew-writers">http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/Olive-Press/2015/0201/Bilingual-collection-of-poems-and-prose-joins-young-Arabic-Hebrew-writers</a><br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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