Huda Fakhreddine on why she prefers to write poetry in Arabic

You write in both English and Arabic, giving you a kind of culturally split tongue. Do you ever feel a sense of estrangement as you move between them?

Poetic writing, or writing that aspires to be poetry, is itself a form of estrangement, even within a single language. Poetry is when language seems to discover itself for the first time. As Abu Tammam says, it is estrangement and a constant search for renewal: "Seek estrangement, and you shall be renewed."

I write articles and academic studies in English, but I can only encounter and grasp poetry when I write in Arabic. Writing in Arabic to me is like a breath of fresh air. I don't necessarily think of a specific audience or reader in mind. I think about language as sound, as a kind of enchantment. I strive to reconnect with that original enchantment, which is rooted in what I grew up hearing: pre-Islamic and Abbasid poetry, as well as the Quran.

When I write in English, my breath quickens. I'm on high alert. I feel that there is a reader or recipient who is uninterested, or even hostile. Writing in English, I feel as though I must prove something, or flip something on its head. I want my English sentence to land a blow, to correct, reclaim, or uncover something. That's why, in English, I write in a constant state of readiness, of confrontation.

You also write literary criticism and use it to support Arabic poetic practices. Is there a distinctly Arab poetic horizon, independent of the models of modernist poetry that emerged in the likes of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq?

Like other movements of revolution and renewal, the Arab modernist movement of the 20th century began as a project of opposition to the literary institutions that preceded it, but it quickly evolved into an institution in its own right. Academic and journalistic approaches often fall short of tracing the margins of this movement, which, at times, proves more loyal to its experimental and revolutionary energy than the centre itself.

That's where we stand in our study of Arab modernism. We often ignore its beginnings in the Maghreb, the Arabian Gulf, and Yemen, and we continue to neglect the contributions of the Arab diaspora, from the early 20th century to the present day. We remain limited in tracking its expressions beyond Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.

As a professor in Pennsylvania, how does the Western cultural world see contemporary Arabic literature today, and what is currently getting the most attention?

The Western cultural establishment is an extension of Western political systems, so interest in Arabic literature has always been—and continues to be—a reflection of Western interests and an outgrowth of its Orientalist lens on our literature and cultures.

Typically, the reception of Arabic literature in Western languages is limited, distorted, and reductive. Whether Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, or Syrian, all are reduced to a single image in a kind of stereotyping.

There is a narrow space available to us in the Western cultural landscape and its institutions, making it difficult to read our literary heritage critically and in a way that honours its aesthetic and artistic dimensions, as we are already exhausted and consumed by the struggle to prove that we exist in the first place.

The study of our literature thus becomes a peripheral activity, secondary to Western anthropological, sociological, and historical approaches, none of which amounts to genuine literary criticism, because they flatten the literature and treat it as a document or a source of information.

This is damaging and dangerous, especially in poetry. That's why we're seeing a disproportionate interest in the Arabic novel, memoirs, and other prose forms—genres that are easier to translate, and easier to simplify and consume. Despite the intellectual and cultural value of modern and contemporary Arabic poetry, there is currently a major shift toward experimentation in the novel.

To what extent does this excessive focus on the novel and the process of novel-making impact Arabic poetry?

It is essential to note that the Arabic novel has yet to undergo a thorough critical evaluation. Much of what we see in contemporary Arabic fiction is written in response to the foreign reader's desire to 'discover' us, to consume our stories within the framework of their own ideas about our culture, and to do so with minimal effort.

That's why many Arab novelists and writers seem to believe that a compelling idea alone is enough to carry a novel. They end up treating language carelessly, with some even deliberately downplaying its importance to try to be direct, accessible, and widely popular.

You have translated many Arab poets into English. What is the role of the translator?

At its core, translation is a deeply attentive act of critical reading. While it must come to terms with the inevitable loss that occurs in the journey between languages, it should still strive to shed light on some aspect of the original text and to recreate its impact in the second language.

In the case of poetry, translation must aim for more than just content. It should aspire to realise poetry on the linguistic, rhetorical, or sonic level and to present a poetic text in a second language. That, at least, is the ambition of translation. It may not always succeed, but the pursuit itself strengthens the translated work and justifies it as a text that can stand on its own, without relying on the original as a crutch.

Can translation be a form of spontaneous intercultural exchange between peoples and civilisations?

At its heart, translation is a fruitful dialogue between linguistic worlds—worlds that dream of becoming one another, that speak to each other on an equal footing. That is the ideal vision of translation. Sadly, we are far from that ideal when translating into dominant languages, especially English. We translate into a void.

Who do we translate for? Often, it is for an adversarial, condescending reader who, at best, meets us with lofty reductionism. With ongoing genocide in Gaza, one that targets our language, our cultural memory, our dreams, and our very sense of self, I'm no longer sure of the value of dialogue in English.

I feel there is little point in translating into English at this time. Why translate for those who feign shallow cultural interest while actively supporting our erasure and annihilation through weapons and complicit policies? If we are to translate our literature after this, let it be done without appeasement.

Let translation become a forceful incursion into English, by which we carve out space for our literature with power and defiance, preserving our dignity and the richness of our language's beauty and memory, without distortion, reduction, or compromise.