{"id":28826,"date":"2013-06-16T18:27:15","date_gmt":"2013-06-16T14:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=28826"},"modified":"2013-06-16T18:27:16","modified_gmt":"2013-06-16T14:27:16","slug":"forza-arabia-italians-show-growing-interest-in-arabic-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/forza-arabia-italians-show-growing-interest-in-arabic-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Forza Arabia’: Italians Show Growing Interest in Arabic Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"moste\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Italian publisher <\/i>Sonzongo<\/i><\/a> focuses both on translations and Italian authors \u2014 mainly for a female audience \u2014 and has recently brought out its first work translated from the Arabic, Ahlam Mosteghanemi\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>L\u2019arte di dimenticare,\u00a0or\u00a0<\/i>The Art of Forgetting.\u00a0ArabLit discussed Arabic literature (in Italian) with Sonzogno\u2019s\u00a0Francesca Prevedello:<\/i><\/p>\n

Prevedello noted that Sonzogno is owned by Marsilio, which focuses on Scandinavian thrillers, but in 2012 published Ahmed Mourad\u2019sVertigo<\/i><\/a>. Also, Mourad\u2019s\u00a0Polvere di diamante<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>(???? ????? ,\u00a0Diamond Dust<\/i>) will be available in Italian bookshops on July 3.<\/p>\n

ArabLit: Has Sonzogno brought out other Arabic literary works? Why Ahlam? What sort of audience are you hoping will read this book of hers (why this one and not\u00a0Chaos of the Senses<\/i>)?<\/b><\/p>\n

Francesca Prevedello:\u00a0<\/b>This is the first translation from Arabic published by Sonzogno. At first, we were impressed by Mosteghanemi\u2019s public figure in the Arab world as an opinion maker and by her success in social media. Reading the book, we had the feeling that through her \u201clight,\u201d ironic and exhilarating style, Mosteghanemi handles topics shared by women all around the world. We enjoyed the book, we find it easy to read and \u201cimmediate,\u201d but also thought-provoking and disruptive in its getting a glimpse at very serious topics between the lines, such as women and political power.<\/p>\n

Translating \u201cthe Mosteghanemi phenomenon\u201d in Italy is quite difficult; anyway, with this book, we wanted to offer Italian readers something the Arab audience (or at least a part of Arab audience) was \u2014 and still is \u2014 talking about, considered the success of \u201c????? .com\u201d\u00a0as a best-seller in Arabic.<\/p>\n

This is also the reason why we decided to publish first this book and not one of Mosteghanemi\u2019s beautiful previous novels.\u00a0La memoria del corpo\u00a0<\/i>(????? ?????)has been published in 2000 by Jouvence and translated by Francesco Leggio. With\u00a0L\u2019arte di dimenticare<\/i>\u00a0(trans. Camilla Albanese) we hope to reach a large audience, not necessarily those interested a priori in Arabic literature and\/or culture.<\/p>\n

AL: Do you think there is an interest in translated Arabic literature among Italian publishers? Italian readers?<\/b><\/p>\n

FP:\u00a0<\/b>Yes, for sure there\u2019s an interest among Italian readers and publishers. Italian publishers are paying attention to Arabic literature.<\/p>\n

AL: If you had to name the Arabic literary works that have had the biggest impact on Italian readers, what would they be?<\/b><\/p>\n

FP:<\/b> In Italy, there was a turning point in translations from Arabic between 2004 and 2006. In 2004, Einaudi published\u00a0??? ????? \u00a0(La porta del sole, Gate of the Sun<\/i>) by Elias Khoury, and in 2006 Feltrinelli published ????? ????????\u00a0(Palazzo Yacoubian, The Yacoubian Building<\/i>) by Alaa al-Aswani. Einaudi and Feltrinelli are two of the biggest publishing houses in Italy and they both have a good distribution \u2013 and this means real availability in bookshops for their books. The list of translations from Arabic published before 2004 is very long (Feltrinelli, for instance, has in its catalogue many titles of Naguib Mahfouz published well before 2004, but we don\u2019t have only Mahfouz before and after 2004) and a great job in publishing translations from Arabic has been done \u2013 and is still done \u2013 by many small and medium Italian publishing houses since the late eighties (translations from Arabic were previously confined to academics).<\/p>\n

AL: Has the landscape for Arabic literature in (Italian) translation changed since 9\/11 the way the English landscape has?<\/b><\/p>\n

FP:<\/b> My previous answer may also be a consequence of 9\/11 and of the increased interest for Arabic culture and literature.<\/p>\n

AL: If Sonzogno were looking for new literature to translate, what would they be looking for?<\/b><\/p>\n

FP:<\/b> Books that fit our editorial line, both in fiction and non-fiction\u2026 and books we like. We are aware that the answer is quite obvious, but when we decide to publish a book, many factors come in and it\u2019s really quite difficult to list them all.<\/p>\n

More about Sonzogno:<\/b><\/p>\n

On their website<\/a><\/p>\n

And certainly we can\u2019t mention Italian without:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2026pointing you to our friend Chiara Comito\u2019s blog,\u00a0http:\/\/editoriaraba.wordpress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M. LYNX-QUALEY: Diving in the Red Sea is not the only pleasure from this region that is proving appealing to Italians. There is a growing interest in its literature. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":28828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,154,5],"tags":[16708,16703,16910,16815,18284,17475,16573,17476,1277,17035,16909,1542,7841,16704],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28826"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28831,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28826\/revisions\/28831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}