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- [00:00]
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- [01:18]
Turul Mende
Hello everybody and welcome back to New Books in Middle Eastern Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Turul Mende, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Marsha Lynx Qualy about her translation, together with Sawad Hussain on I Want Golden Eyes, written by Maria Daduch and published by University of Texas Press earlier this year. Welcome to the podcast, Marsha.
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Marsha Lynx Qualey
Thanks so much. I'm so glad to be here.
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Turul Mende
Thank you so much. Maybe for the listeners who don't know you and your work, can you maybe explain what you are doing and what brought you to Arabic litigation? Richer in the beginning.
- [01:55]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Okay, well, it's been a long time since I've gone back that far. I will start with who I am and what I do now, which is I'm the founding editor of Arablet, which is now Arablet, Arablet Quarterly and Arablet Books, an online magazine, a very small publishing house and a magazine. And how I how did I come to this, which is that I moved to Cairo in the early 2000s to take a job teaching at one of the many, many, many English language schools that are in Cairo. A friend, my college roommate, actually had gone to take one of these jobs imagining she wanted to be in teaching, and she has actually gone into teaching and stayed in teaching. I found that I was atrocious at teaching and possibly the world's worst kindergarten teacher. But I loved Cairo. And so as I shifted out of teaching. I looked for other things that I could do. I worked for a while for El Masri Eliom and as a sort of cultural reporter. It was sort of the great old times when Leena Atollah was in charge. And then I found that there were a lot of people who had these, you know, small personal blogs in the early 2000s. It was a time when this kind of was a blossoming form in Cairo. And so I opened Arablet in the beginning just to kind of remark upon the books that I'd read. And it was a kind of a, maybe a small blogging community at the time. Ahmed Neji wrote about, I think, my blog in somewhere, Akbar Adam maybe, and Ursula Lindsay and Sanda Mirani also had a blog called the Arabist at the time, and they wrote about it as well. And so I just think it kind of snowballed from there.
- [03:49]
Turul Mende
Thank you so much, Marsha. And coming to this novel by Maria Daduch, when did you first learn about her work? And how did Sabah Hussain join you in translating this novel? I Want Golden Eyes.
- [04:04]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Yes. Okay. So I first heard about Maria's work from Rania Abdelrahman a long time ago, back when Rania was with the Emirates Literature Foundation, I think, or maybe even before that, I'm not sure. But I definitely heard about her work from Rania. I used to go each year to a number of book fairs just to pick up books. And especially after I started having kids, I became very interested in literature for young readers. And there's not very much information out there about Arabic literature and what's being published, you know, what's being published, what's coming out, or at least there wasn't 10, 15 years ago. And there certainly wasn't very much information about what was being published for young readers. So in order to find new books, I really had to kind of go to the book fairs and dig through the stacks. And I remember Rania taking this middle grade series by Maria Dadush and showing it to me, showing me how fun and funny it was. And I know that at the time Rania had wanted to translate these middle grade novels. And I'm not really sure whatever happened happened to that. But then I met Maria several times. We intersected at some of these book fairs. And I was very excited about a lot of her work actually. And I think I'm pretty sure that it was University of Texas Press after she won this Schumann Award that was interested in I Want Golden Eyes because they were interested in this speculative fiction direction with the press so they had said, doctor, you, you know, I think I had already made contact with Maria and was sort of passionate about her work. And University of Texas Press said, well, do you want to work on this one? And I'm fairly certain that Dana at University of Texas Press had us both Savad and I. And Savad was very busy at the time. So I started out and I did a draft of it first and then it was really fantastic to have such an experienced translator as Savad to reread the original against the translation and look through and really kind of listened to the novel and make suggestions on how the final product should be.
- [06:28]
Turul Mende
Thank you so much. And maybe coming a bit to the content of the novel, it is maybe it is like for young readers mostly probably the novel. But can you tell us a bit about, without giving too much spoilers, what we can deal with this kind of novel, what it is about, and is it maybe for adults as well? Or what could adults learn from this book too?
- [06:53]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Right. Well, so, okay, so my opinion, my personal opinion is that good children's literature is for all ages. Good adult literature is obviously not also for five year olds, but really good children's literature can be enjoyed by, by anyone. Now, I, I didn't translate this book because I thought a 14 year old would enjoy it. I translated because I loved it. And I also believe that of course, well, I shared it with my own kids. So I, I, my son, who's now 14, works for me. Reading through Ansevad actually works for both of us. Reading through and just kind of checking the dialogue, making sure nothing sounds, you know, too corny or like I'm trying too hard. So about this book in particular, it follows one teenage girl who's 16 years old in this, in a particular kind of future that's in on the Comoros Islands, there is sort of an underclass and then everybody else who lives above ground, the underclass lives below ground. People are designated from birth by their intelligence level. So, you know, there's a sort of a marker instantly if you're at or above a certain intelligence level. And of course, the wealthy people who live above ground have ways to genetically manipulate their children. And so, you know, the rich get richer in that sense. And the people who live below ground don't have access to these means and tend to sort of generationally live below ground, not have access to good education, not have access to good Internet and to kind of be generationally disadvantaged. I mean, I think it's obvious from, from that description that it could apply to that it's a lens on our world, that it's really a critique of our world. And without attempting to spoil very much, I think you can, you can see that, that, that the novel will show that intelligence is not fixed. That once our, our hero of, of our protagonist gets access to education, she can expand her world, she can learn to think differently and even she can learn to exceed, you know, the, the intelligence limits of, of her, her, of her world. And does this mean that she becomes a kind of a social climber and she just pulls herself up and out into this world above called Quartzia? Or does it mean that she is interested in, you know, in changing things fundamentally for everyone below? Well, you'll have to read the book and find out.
- [09:37]
Turul Mende
Thank you. Yes. And looking at Marie Daduch's overall work, I want Golden Eyes. What does Marie Dadush's work make so special to want them to translate them into English and to make it accessible to a wider audience of readers?
- [09:59]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Well, I think that the first thing that Rania Abdelrahman noted and that she showed me about these chapter books is that Maria is so funny that her, her books for young readers are funny. And I think that is an essential element when you're trying to get young people engaged with a book this, this science fiction book. Even though of course it is, you know, it's more serious than some of her other books. Dialla is sort of is enslaved in part of it. It's, it's, it's grim. She's, she's whipped in a kind of a gruesome way. You wouldn't, you wouldn't give this book to your seven year old, for instance. But there are also moments of, of great levity. And there's one in particular, not to gross people out, where she spits in the drinks of some rich people. That's really funny. And I know it doesn't necessarily sound funny the way I said it, but she also has this great sense of pacing. She obviously cares about her characters a lot. They're really fleshed out and well rounded. I've worked on a couple of her other books that just are sitting on my laptop that I haven't yet found a publisher for. And just in general, her pacing, her timing, her humor, her characters, whatever kinds she, she does very broad range of works from picture books to historical YA to funny short mystery middle grade novels. And in all of them she's just warm and funny.
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- [12:37]
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- [13:04]
Turul Mende
And coming now a bit to the translation process of the novel and maybe a little bit about the language as well. If you can remember while translating it, how did you feel the language was for? Was it especially addressed to children or young adults or was it like normally addressed to a normal or to the general audience? And you said that you first finished the draft and send it then to Sawa to sen to look at. But can you explain a bit more how your relationship in this translating process was too. Thank you.
- [13:45]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Yeah. Between all three of us, maybe. Yeah. So I guess linguistically to me, the biggest thing that signals a young adult novel or a middle grade novel in Arabic is just that the language is more straightforward. It's not, I don't feel that it's, you know, particularly. It's certainly not dumbed down. I mean, the language of this book in particular is complicated in that speculative fiction sense, in that she invents a lot of terms, right. Because she's inventing new technologies and new kind of social relationships and a lot of new stuff that you have to then make up a word for in English because it doesn't exist. But the, the sort of plotting also in most of the young adult novels that I read is more straightforward. There's a lot less regression. There's less of these very long, long Sentences that are recursive. I mean, she's just not. She's not there trying to make a complicated sentence so much as she's there to bring you into the action, show you what's going on, and pull you along. In the translation process, I guess I spent a lot of time, more time than I would generally upfront, talking with Maria because I wanted. Because it's a science fiction novel. And, you know, with some novels, you can sort of like, oh, this takes place in 1970s Ramola. I can look at some photographs, I can watch some videos. I can do some research. With her novel Heart, the heart is right behind the rib, which takes place in. In. It's a historical novel that takes place in. In Morocco. And fax. You know, I can. Some of these architectural terms I need to kind of look up. What do the buildings really look like. But with this. With science fiction, I don't know. There's no photographs out there. Quartzia doesn't exist. Neither does, you know, neither this underground burrow. So I wanted to talk to Maria beforehand to get a sense of how she visualized these things. There's this thing that Kathryn Halls, the translator Kathryn Halls talks about, which is that the translation is like a glacier. Like, you only see this tip that comes out from underneath, up above the water, but that it needs to be supported by all this thought and research and looking at the language and looking at below. So maybe, maybe my conversations with Maria about what this world looks like don't necessarily show up in the novel. And it is fortunately, at least set in a future Comoros, so I could get a sense of what the landscape might look like in the future. So that part. So then, of course, then even as I went along, I still had questions like, okay, what exactly is this disease that Diella's father has and what is the treatment and why? You know, so there were some additional aspects, a lot of it related to the science fiction nature of it, that I wanted to understand more, have a thicker understanding even than, you know, than the reader would, so that we can make this happen in English. And then there was this additional layer of then Savad reading it and saying to me, either this wasn't clear enough or, you know, all the things like, you know, we need to tighten up the action here or, you know, tighten up the language here, increase the pacing here. You know, she read it aloud, she. And then she. She gave me her feedback, you know, sort of line by line. So it was a very intense process, which was. Which is the good part of Co Translation.
- [17:38]
Turul Mende
And as mentioned earlier, the book was published with the University of Texas Press within the Emerging Voices in the Middle east series. Was it like conscious decision to publish it within an academic press? And is there an advantage to do it with these kind of presses in comparison to maybe like Dar Arab or other presses? In comparison?
- [18:05]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Sure. Okay, so one thing is that it's very hard to publish middle grade and young adult literature, any literature for young readers in translation. It is very hard. There is a perception that literature and translation is a serious grown up adult thing and that there's a reason to publish literature and translation for adults, but that kids just want books, which is true, but we can still thicken their, thicken their reading experience, bring them more places around the world, I believe very deeply in translating literature for young readers. So it's just so hard to find a publisher out there. Also, a publisher for young readers has to be specialized in reaching young readers in some way. There are probably a number of small presses that might be interested in publishing middle grade or young adult literature, but without the knowledge of how to reach those communities of young readers. Because it is not the same way that you reach adult readers. You have to, you know, with middle grade, you know, you need to go through the schools in some cases with ya, you can also reach young readers through schools. But then there's also, you know, young people who are book bloggers. There are young people who are out there writing about books from, for people their own age. So I think the advantage of University of Texas Press in particular was that Denna is interested in trying to make those connections with schools, with librarians, with young people, is interested in building out that community of readers for the books coming from University of Texas Press, and that she also has some additional resources from the University of Texas. So she, for instance, was able to have, have Maria come in and speak about the book with, with young people at different places and, and fund, you know, and work the funding of that through University of Texas. Whereas with, with a, a small publisher, an independent small publisher, they wouldn't have that kind of institutional assistance to do that kind of work. I mean, it's, it's certainly a challenge because most of what University of Texas Press does is obviously books for, for grownups. So. But I think the thing that they were willing to do was think through how to create some school materials, how to reach out to those young audiences, both with this and with the Thunderbird series, which I also. Sunya Nimmer's Thunderbird series, which I also did with them.
- [20:56]
Turul Mende
Thank you so much. Marsha, and maybe this question is a bit personal, but as you. It depends on what you want to reveal. Of course, with being like founding editor of Arab lit, the website and the magazine, and being an editor and working on translations, can you maybe tell us how you. How such a day would look like juggling all these projects at once?
- [21:23]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Yeah, well, so Airblit doesn't actually pay me anything to do. So it's like a full time job that I'm doing in addition to my real full time job which is editing, translating, writing, etc for other presses generally. Um, so my day is split between working at Arablet, which is. Which sometimes involves doing the translation myself, finding translators, editing translators, which is a great, I think experience for anybody who wants to be part of this landscape. Working on editing other people's translations and reading other people's translations against the original I think is such an important kind of growth experience. So it does give me that opportunity. So yes, you will find me editing, for instance this morning, a translation for Dar Arab, which is part of what I do in order to support the work. So I work basically work for other presses in order to support the work of Arablet.
- [22:31]
Turul Mende
Thank you so much, Marsha. And coming to the last question, which kind of, which novels would you like to see in the future being translated, maybe by yourself or other translators that you know?
- [22:47]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Well, I have so many books that I would like to see in translation and any publishers who are listening, of course, we have a monthly newsletter for publishers which is arablet.substack.com, i believe that is about books that should be in translation. We have something up today on Arab lit about a book that I'm so excited about which is called the Children of Nut and Other Myths. Reimagining Egyptian Tales by Muhammad A. Jamal, translated by James Scanlon. And it is a reimagining of Egyptian mythology with this kind of snarky adult voice. And I'm so excited. When James first sent it to me, I was just like, as is me, like Muhammad Jamal. I was a kid who loved the, you know, that Greek, that Greek mythology as a kid and then Norse mythology and Japanese mythology and, and there was never any ancient Egyptian mythology. So this kind of retelling of it is so exciting for me and, but for myself I see my niche in this. There's, there's so many really fantastic translators now working from Arabic to English. I. That I, I see my role more as facilitator, editor, making, you know, helping others find their. Are their opportunities. There's however, there is still a dearth, like a great dearth of translation for young readers. So where I see my place in this landscape is translating young adult literature, middle grade novels, chapter books, even Maria has this really sweet one called who Took Our Cart? About life. And it's like a tiny mini mystery of life in a refugee camp about, you know, some kids trying to find their cart. And it is so tender and beautiful and I would love to see it in English. There's so many of her books that I would just really love to see in English. And there's really been a blossoming of middle grade and young adult literature in the last, well, since 2000, basically in Arabic. And so I would just love to see more of that available in translation.
- [25:11]
Turul Mende
Thank you so much, Marcia, for joining us today on the New Books Network. And, and thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
- [25:19]
Marsha Lynx Qualey
Of course. Thank you for having me.
- [25:34]
TJ Watt
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