Banipal 69 - 9 New Novels Nagat Ali to flutter round the lamp

to flutter round the lamp

Translation has often been a sort of smuggling

as the poets channel Ovid’s mischief and whisper tales of just and unjust deserts

First published in 1954

Along the way

Banipal 69 - 9 New Novels Nagat Ali to flutter round the lampBanipal 69 opens by saluting in texts by two of its major authors, the city of Beirut that was devastated by the calamitous explosion at its port on 4 August: Beirutshima is a resounding and moving poem by the poet Abdo Wazen that describes vividly and painfully the sudden and awful moments of the destruction as tongues of hellfire shot out in a nightmare moment like eternity, in a brilliant translation by Paul Starkey. Elias Khourys essay The City of