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Contributor

Shareah Taleghani

Contributor

Shareah Taleghani

Shareah Taleghani is a PhD student in the Department of Middle East Studies at New York University. Her research interests in contemporary Arabic literature include globalization and the politics of translation, literary tourism, and theories of narrative. She has recently completed a master’s thesis on nostalgic longing, satire, and allegory in Arabic literature.

Articles by Shareah Taleghani

Barada
By Nizar Qabbani
Barada, oh father of all riversOh, horse that races the daysBe, in our sad history, a prophetWho receives inspiration from his lordMillions acknowledge you as an ArabPrince . . . so pray as an imamOh…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
The First Breaths of Freedom
By Hasiba Abd al-Rahman
Now I go back to my worry again. This is my bed, so why do I feel alienated? I spent my childhood, my adolescence, my youth here . . .
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Damascus, What Are You Doing to Me?
By Nizar Qabbani
How do the gardens of Sham transform me?
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Groans
By Faraj Bayraqdar
1Here I am you aloneIn this mad, gapingHellHere I am you alone and death altogetherWith its predators and its seers and the informersPerhaps I am arriving atThe limit of my possibilitiesFor you to arrive…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
An Alphabetical Formation
By Faraj Bayraqdar
Alif You’re not beginning . . .It’s an eternity, you know . . .I mean, the ever-after, you knowNo matter, then.Raise your cavalryBut don’t set out for the horizon,Or the sea . .…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
A Stranger by the Gulf (1953)
By Badr Shakir as-Sayyab
The wind gasps with the midday heat,         like a nightmare in the late afternoonAnd on the masts, it continues to fold, to spread for departureThe gulf is crowded with them–laborers…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani
Nothing but Iraq (March 29, 2003)
By Mahmoud Darwish
I remember as-Sayyab screaming into the Gulf in vain:Iraq, Iraq. Nothing but Iraq.And nothing but an echo repliesI remember as-Sayyab, in that Sumerian spaceA woman triumphed over the sterility of mistShe…
Translated from Arabic by Shareah Taleghani