Martha MoodyMartha Moody

Translator Jamal Assadi

Jamal Assadi
Jamal Assadi

For several years, Jamal Assadi has been translating short stories by Israeli-Palestinian writers from Arabic into English. For the last couple years I've been helping him with the vagaries of English. From the tiny bit of Arabic I've learned, I can see that translating that dense and flowing language into English must be a challenge. Jamal has put his shoulder to the wheel. Reading the short stories he has translated has made me more aware of the differences and similarities of our cultures and people.

Jamal's first volume of translations, A Rose to Hafeeza's Eyes, is a collection of short stories of Mohammad Ali Taha. Assadi's second book of translations is Father and Son: Selected Short Fiction by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid. Assadi's third volume of translations (you can see he is a translation machine!) is entitled Three Voices from the Galilee: Selected Short Stories by Mohammad Naffaa, Zaki Darwish, and Naji Dahe. Assadi is currently translating short stories by Palestinian women for another anthology. I'm enjoying reading these very much.

Read a sample story from the Darwish book: The Last Supper [PDF].

The Internal Pages and other stories, Mustafa Murrar

Mustafa Murrar: "The Internal Pages" and Other Stories

Translated by Jamal Assadi
with assistance from Martha Moody

"Mustafa Murrar's stories span more than a fifty-year period. Jamal Assadi has translated a selection of these stories to introduce this Palestinian writer to a wider public through the English language. This volume includes serious stories with light and humorous scenes, love stories intermingled with tales of the unusual, and political stories interwoven with love scenes. This book enables Murrar to tell his own stories and the stories of his people—stories of alienation and marginalization but also of hopes and dreams—in a new magnified voice. All readers will savor the aroma of a different culture, while scholars of Arabic literature will be given the chance to tread new fields for academic assessment and critique." [from the book jacket]

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A Rose to Hafeeza's Eyes

A Rose to Hafeeza's Eyes

Translated by Jamal Assadi

"Mohammad Ali Taha is a well-known Palestinian writer residing in Galilee as an Israeli citizen. Despite his fame in the Arab world, his works are still unfamiliar to Western audiences. In this volume, translator Jamal Assadi has collected a selection of Tahas short stories, representing a variety of themes, styles, historical periods, contexts, settings, tones, languages, narrations, and characters, with the intent to help Taha enter what Edward Said calls the large, many-windowed house of human culture as a whole. In his introduction, Assadi discusses the culture, traits, and manners of Tahas world, which provides the reader with a greater appreciation and understanding of the short stories in this volume." [from the book jacket]

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Father and Son

Father & Son

Selected Short Fiction by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid

Edited and Translated by Jamal Assadi

"Father and Son is a collection of short stories by Hanna Ibrahim Elias and Mohammad Ali Saeid, who have managed to compel into unity the contradictions of being Israeli citizens and sons of the Palestinian people. These stories span over fifty years and so faithfully record the rise and development of the various aspects of what is called, paradoxically, Israeli-Palestinian life." [from the book jacket]

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Three Voices from the Galilee

Three Voices from the Galilee

Selected Short Stories by Mohammad Naffaa, Zaki Darwish and Naji Daher

Edited and Translated by Jamal Assadi
with assistance from Martha Moody and Ibrahim Darwish

"Three Voices from the Galilee is the third in a series of volumes meant to present the short fiction of Mohammad Naffaa, a political activist, Zaki Darwish, an educator, and Naji Daher, a journalist. These stories faithfully record the development of the various aspects of what is paradoxically called Israeli-Palestinian life. Readers of this volume will encounter serious stories strewn with light and humorous scenes and stories of intense love mixed with stories of the unusual. Story after story presents a different choice in terms of point of view, gender and setting. Each character is exciting and convincing. While casual readers of this volume will taste the flavor of a different culture, scholars interested in Arabic literature will be provided with new arenas for academic evaluations and critique." [from the book jacket]

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