Amara Lakhous has been working closely with his translators from Arabic - Alexander Elinson (English), Francesco Leggio (Italian) and, Lotfi Nia (French) - for over two years to rewrite his Arabic novel Ta’ir al-lail ‘The Night Bird’ (long-listed for the International Prize in Arabic Fiction - 2021). This experiment in collaborative and translingual practice has allowed each language to enhance the others. The process of “Translingual Collective Translation” reveals two important facts: First, translators are often the closest collaborators with the author and the ones best positioned to work at improving the original text. After the author, no one has more deeply engaged with the text. Second, as a bilingual writer (Arabic and Italian), Lakhous discovered that Arab writers are essentially translators. They write in standard Arabic, which differs from the spoken language in Arab countries.
Alexander Elinson, Amara Lakhous, Francesco Leggio, and Lotfi Nia are presenting the results of their experiment at Yale.
Alexander Elinson (English), Francesco Leggio (Italian) and, Lotfi Nia (French) - for over two years to rewrite his Arabic novel Ta’ir al-lail ‘The Night Bird’ (long-listed for the International Prize in Arabic Fiction - 2021). This experiment in collaborative and translingual practice has allowed each language to enhance the others. The process of “Translingual Collective Translation” reveals two important facts: First, translators are often the closest collaborators with the author and the ones best positioned to work at improving the original text. After the author, no one has more deeply engaged with the text. Second, as a bilingual writer (Arabic and Italian), Lakhous discovered that Arab writers are essentially translators. They write in standard Arabic, which differs from the spoken language in Arab countries.
Alexander Elinson is Associate Professor of Arabic and Head of the Arabic Program Hunter College of the City University of New York. In addition to his book Looking back at al-Andalus: the poetics of loss and nostalgia in medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature, he has written extensively on classical Arabic and Hebrew poetry and prose, as well as on contemporary language politics and ideology, prison narratives, and oral and written culture in Morocco. He has translated two novels by Youssef Fadel: A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me and A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me, which was shortlisted for the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. He has also translated Hot Maroc by Yassin Adnan which was shortlisted for the 2022 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. His translation of Khadija Marouazi`s prison novel History of Ash was published in 2023. He is currently translating Amara Lakhous`s The Night Bird, and Saïd Khatibi’s The End of the Sahara.
Amara Lakhous was born in Algeria and lived in Italy for 18 years. He joined Yale as Professor in the Practice in the Department of Italian Studies in 2023. He holds a Ph.D. in Humanities from the University of Rome. He is a bilingual novelist. He is the author of five novels, three written in Arabic and Italian. His best-known works are the acclaimed Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (2008), Divorce Islamic Style (2012), Dispute over a Very Italian Piglet (2014), and The Prank of the Good Little Virgin in Via Ormea (2016). His latest novel in Arabic, Tir al-lil, The Night Bird (2019), was long-listed for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2021. His novels have been translated from Italian into 7 different languages.
Francesco Leggio was born in Palermo, Sicily. After obtaining a PhD in Arabic language and literature at the Orientale in Naples, he has always combined his university activity with the profession of translator and interpreter of Arabic/Italian. Currently, he works as a translator for the Immigration Office in Palermo and is also an Adjunct Professor at Università di Studi Internazionali di Roma where he teaches Translation from Arabic in Master’s courses. He has been translating contemporary Arabic novels for three decades. He started with Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North and then moved on to North African fiction, such as Algerian Ahlam Mostaghanemi’s The Memory of the Flesh, Tunisian Kamel Riahi’s The Scalpel and Amara Lakhous’s The Bugs and the Pirate and The Night Bird.
Lotfi Nia was born in Algeria and lives in Marseille. He has been translating contemporary literature since 2005, particularly poetry, alongside Hassan Hourani and Ghassan Zaqtan. Additionally, he has translated several Algerian novels written in Arabic, including works by H’mida Ayachi, Abdelwahab Benmansour, Bachir Mefti, Samir Kacimi, Salah Badis, and Amara Lakhous. He is a member of BaaM, a collective that promotes Arab cultures and literatures through the Associated Arab Library of Marseille.
