{"id":296946,"date":"2014-03-21T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2014\/03\/21\/why-this-book-should-win-leg-over-leg-vol-1-ahmad-faris-al-shidyaq-translated-by-humphrey-davies\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:39:26","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:39:26","slug":"why-this-book-should-win-leg-over-leg-vol-1-ahmad-faris-al-shidyaq-translated-by-humphrey-davies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2014\/03\/21\/why-this-book-should-win-leg-over-leg-vol-1-ahmad-faris-al-shidyaq-translated-by-humphrey-davies\/","title":{"rendered":"Why This Book Should Win: Leg Over Leg Vol. 1, Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, translated by Humphrey Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Orthofer runs the Complete Review<\/a> \u2013 a book review site with a focus on international fiction \u2013 and its Literary Saloon<\/a> weblog.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Why should Humphrey Davies\u2019 translation of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq Leg Over Leg<\/i> (Vol. 1) win this year\u2019s Best Translated Book Award? Well, simply put: because it is awesome.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin with the full title: Leg over Leg or The Turtle in the Tree concerning The F\u0101riy\u0101q, What Manner of Creature Might He Be otherwise entitled Days, Months, and Years spent in Critical Examination of The Arabs and Their Non-Arab Peers<\/i>. Which is already pretty awesome (and, let\u2019s face it, a bit more intriguing than Textile<\/i>, Commentary<\/i>, or Tirza<\/i>\u2026).<\/p>\n

Mind you, a lot of books on the longlist impress, in a variety of ways. There are some truly great pieces of literature, great translations, great books among them, works that we\u2019ll be talking about and reading for years to come. And yet even in this lofty company, Leg Over Leg<\/i> is a standout.<\/p>\n

Given that eight of the twenty-five authors with works on the longlist are deceased, Leg Over Leg<\/i> is hardly the only belatedly-brought-into English work \u2013 but, originally published in Arabic in 1855, it is the oldest book in the running. In purely literary-historical terms, it\u2019s probably also safe to say that it\u2019s the most significant. As Rebecca C. Johnson writes in her foreword, this work is: \u201cacknowledged as one of the most distinguished works of the nineteenth century and an inaugural text of Arabic modernity\u201d. In that case: What took so long? you might wonder. (I did, but I wonder that about a lot of books\u2026.) Well, there hasn\u2019t been much more than a drip of translation of Arabic literature into English over the decades \u2013 increasing now to perhaps a trickle \u2013 and Leg Over Leg<\/i> doesn\u2019t fit with the general conceptions most publishers and readers might have of Arabic fiction.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s already one reason why this book should win the BTBA<\/span>: it blows our (pre-)conceptions of Arabic literature out of the water. It certainly did mine. Sure, I\u2019ve made my way through Naguib Mahfouz and Elias Khoury, and a variety of the translations of Arabic novels from the past decades, but I never managed to get much of a sense of anything earlier than, say, Tawfiq al-Hakim. Sure, there\u2019s always the Arabian Nights<\/i>, but that stands so distant and apart from everything else that it feels entirely separate. Arabic fiction \u2013 in translation \u2013 always seemed to be twentieth (generally later- twentieth) and twenty-first century fiction, much of it strongly shaped by so-called Western influences. And then I pick this up and get an electrifying jolt, finding a mid-nineteenth century literary work that is as radical and inventive as any modern novel. I thought I had a decent sense of modern Arabic literature, and suddenly I found myself exposed to a whole new layer underlying it all, throwing a whole new light on all of it.<\/p>\n

Before I read Leg Over Leg<\/i> I would have suspected any nineteenth-century work of Arabic fiction to be\u2026well, let\u2019s be honest: kind of conservative and stale. But Leg Over Leg<\/i> turns out to probably be the most exuberant and formally inventive text on the entire BTBA<\/span> longlist.<\/p>\n

Leg Over Leg<\/i> is an autobiographical novel, centered on the life of the author\u2019s alter ego, \u2018the F\u0101riy\u0101q\u2019. An eighty-chapter work, it is divided into four books \u2013 and it is the first of these that is BTBA<\/span>-longlisted; Leg Over Leg<\/i> is, remarkably, one of four multi-volume works of which an individual volume has been longlisted this year (the others being the books by C\u0103rt\u0103rescu, Ferrante, and Knausgaard). Even though volumes three and four of Leg Over Leg<\/i> will only be published later this year, the first volume stands up superbly on its own. While the young F\u0101riy\u0101q\u2019s life-story is the framework for the narrative, al-Shidyaq feels entirely comfortable taking it completely off the rails at times, too. There are stories within the stories here, and metafictional games. Above all, the text engages with language, in everything from its use of rhyme and poetry to dictionary-like lists and glossaries. Throughout, al-Shidyaq revels in the possibilities of language and expression. And \u2018ribald\u2019 doesn\u2019t do justice to the extensive sexual-(word)play found here (yes, Leg Over Leg<\/i> is definitely not conservative).<\/p>\n

The BTBA<\/span> is a translation prize, and so we naturally focus on the quality of the translation, too. And here we have yet another reason why Leg Over Leg<\/i> should win: Humphrey Davies\u2019 translation is a stunner. No doubt, one reason why Leg Over Leg<\/i> hasn\u2019t been translated previously is because it can seem untranslatable. There is a lot of wordplay here, from the use of rhymes within passages to what amount to lists of word-definitions \u2013 and even beyond that, the multifaceted text is daunting. Every text brings with it translation-challenges, but few of the longlisted titles presented anywhere near as many as this one does \u2013 and yet Davies handled them exceptionally well. The reader gets a sense of much of what al-Shidyaq is trying to do, and especially what he is trying to say and demonstrate about language; equally importantly, the humor \u2013 and there\u2019s a lot of it \u2013 comes across: in English, too, Leg Over Leg<\/i> is a very funny book.<\/p>\n

One of the amazing things about this year\u2019s BTBA<\/span> longlist is that the 25 titles were published by 23 different publishers. There are many who specialize in literature in translation, and it\u2019s always nice to see them get some recognition \u2013 and it\u2019s nice to see the publishers of Leg Over Leg<\/i> get the recognition too: by itself it\u2019s not really good enough a reason why this book should win the BTBA<\/span>, but it doesn\u2019t hurt. Leg Over Leg<\/i> is one of the first volumes in NYU<\/span> Press\u2019 new Library of Arabic Literature<\/a>, devoted to publishing: \u201ckey works of classical and premodern Arabic literature\u201d. Many of the BTBA<\/span>-longlisted publishers also have admirable missions, but there\u2019s no doubt that this is a worthy, important, and long overdue one.<\/p>\n

Yet one more reason why this book should win is how the Library of Arabic Literature-volumes are published: in bilingual editions. Quite a few of the BTBA<\/span> poetry contenders are usually bilingual editions, but bilingual fiction titles are a rarity. Admittedly, most of us (including me) can\u2019t make or do much with the Arabic text facing the English on each page, but aside from aesthetic appreciation I think it does give a better sense of the text as a whole. In particular, one can at least get a sense of some of the repetition, as well as the original presentation of the text; given its complexities, any additional clues are welcome.<\/p>\n

Finally, yet another reason why this book should win the BTBA<\/span> is because it deserves the attention. Even though this book was published many months ago it has barely received any notice. Possibly the \u2018serious\u2019 periodicals like the Times Literary Supplement<\/i> are waiting for the full four-volume set to be available before they tackle it, possibly it sits uneasily between \u2018scholarly\u2019 (it looks so serious in it\u2019s plain cover; there are thirty pages of endnotes; it\u2019s from a university press; it\u2019s bilingual) and popular (it should be popular!), but it\u2019s still astonishing and baffling that a publication of this significance, and of a book that\u2019s just plain this good, hasn\u2019t received the glowing attention it deserves. (I do note, however, that several of the BTBA<\/span> longlisted books have received minimal review attention \u2013 notably Commentary<\/i>, Red Grass<\/i>, and Sleet<\/i>.)<\/p>\n

So look: it\u2019s hard not think of Leg Over Leg<\/i> as the most important translation in the running for the BTBA<\/span>. It\u2019s an amazing work of literature. It\u2019s an incredible translation. It\u2019s a beautiful edition (bilingual, helpfully annotated). And it\u2019s just a whole lot of fun to read. So I\u2019m not so much wondering why it should win the BTBA<\/span> as: how can it not?<\/p>\n

See also my review<\/a> of Leg Over Leg<\/i>, as well as interviews with translator Humphrey Davies by Sal Robinson at Moby Lives (An \u201cabsquiliferous\u201d interview with Humphrey Davies, Arabic translator<\/a>) and M.Lynx Qualey at Arabic Literature (in English) (Humphrey Davies on Climbing Translation\u2019s Mt. Everest<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Orthofer runs the Complete Review \u2013 a book review site with a focus on international fiction \u2013 and its Literary Saloon weblog. Why should Humphrey Davies\u2019 translation of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq Leg Over Leg (Vol. 1) win this year\u2019s Best Translated Book Award? Well, simply put: because it is awesome. Let\u2019s begin with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[1646],"class_list":["post-296946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317616,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296946\/revisions\/317616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}