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Contributor

Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Kareem James Abu Zeid

Contributor

Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Kareem James Abu-Zeid is an award-winning freelance translator of authors from across the Arab world. His most recent translation is the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish’s Exhausted on the Cross (NYRB Poets, 2021). He lives in the countryside just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Articles by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

The Monastery of Saint Naum

Fif' from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Near the Shrine of Saint Naum

By Najwan Darwish

I stood in the red church, / its tiny domes like buds / blossoming in stone

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

MultimediaMultilingual

A Wave in the Sea: Najwan Darwish on “Exhausted on the Cross”

By Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Born in Jerusalem, Najwan Darwish published his first poetry collection in 2000. He has since become one of the foremost contemporary Arab poets, and one of the most powerful poetic voices to emerge from…

Two Poems

I / am stolen splendor on a darkened street

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

The Veil: An Extremely Short Play

By Mansour Bushnaf

The men pull dollar bills out of their pockets and throw them at the women’s heads.

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Anatomy of the Rose

By Soukaina Habiballah

The blooming petals: a navel.

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Multilingual

Solitary Confinement on the Seventh Floor

By Mazen Maarouf

One day / I’ll tear off my lips / and eat them / like candy.

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal

“Your Baby”

By Asmaa Alghoul

The phantoms behind the white sheet were moving more quickly now.

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Multilingual

A Knockout Punch

By Eyad Barghuthy

It was in New York that he learned the real ways of boxing.

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

Multilingual

Life in Mount Carmel

By Najwan Darwish

Their poems reach me from their temple

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal

A Stray Bullet

By Mazen Maarouf

a stray bullet / veered slightly off course

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal

Multilingual

Downtown

By Mazen Maarouf

I roll my pierced heart / across the bedcover

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal

Multilingual

On Death

By Mazen Maarouf

But we run up against / the stone slab over our bodies

Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid & Nathalie Handal

Multilingual

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