Absinthe: World Literature in Translation is proud to announce the upcoming release of its 28th issue, Orphaned of Light: Translating Arab and Arabophone Migration (Fall 2022).

Edited by Graham Liddell, the issue is a collection of contemporary literary works that foreground experiences of migration and refugeehood, most of them originally published after the turn of the millennium. It opens with a piece by the late Palestinian revolutionary writer Ghassan Kanafani, and also features work from other renowned authors, including Saadi Youssef, Haji Jabir, and Jan Dost. 

Additionally, Absinthe 28 highlights new work by Arabophone authors from the US Midwest, such as Gulala Nouri, a Kurdish Iraqi poet based in Dearborn, Michigan. The phrase “orphaned of light” comes from her elegiac poem “No Flowers on My Doorstep,” translated by Dearbornite Ali Harb.

This issue of Absinthe also features poetry in a bilingual format, such as the work of Sara Abou Rashed, a Palestinian American poet and MFA student at the University of Michigan, who translated her own work from English to Arabic for the issue.Veteran translators like Marilyn Booth, Nancy Roberts, and Khaled Mattawa contributed to Absinthe 28 alongside relative newcomers to literary translation, including several Michigan graduate students.

The complex creative process of translation is brought to the fore in the issue through the translators’ introductions that precede each entry. In these short reflections, translators meditate on the works’ themes, their own methodology, and the significance of the act of translation itself, particularly in the context of migration.

Orphaned of Light serves as a reminder that translation and migration are inextricably linked. Its works illustrate many forms of migration — diasporic life, undocumented labor, refugeehood, human trafficking, internal displacement, and exile — often written from the perspective of migrants themselves.

Absinthe 28 is 190 pages and is now available for preorder on Amazon. The issue is co-sponsored by the U-M Department of Middle East Studies and will be officially released at the University of Michigan on December 9, 2022 at an event featuring readings by contributors.