Fady Joudah and Ghassan Zaqtan on tour

The Tour Lives! After an aborted reading tour, due to visa difficulties, Ghassan Zaqtan and Fady Joudah will be reading throughout the country this coming fall. Here's the skinny from the Yale Press blog, where Zaqtan's book appears.

Leading Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan and fellow award-winning poet and translator Fady Joudah are scheduled to visit 15 U.S. venues during October in support of Joudah’s critically acclaimed translation of Zaqtan’s work Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems. Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, and Other Poems was published earlier this year as a volume in Yale University Press’s Margellos World Republic of Letters series – a series that aims to transcend the boundaries of language by making literary works from around the globe available in English. With the poems in this volume, Zaqtan illuminates what Arabic poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular is capable of.

Departing from the lush aesthetics of such celebrated predecessors as Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis, Zaqtan’s daily, delicate narrative, whirling catalogues, and at times austere aesthetics represent a new trajectory, a significant leap for young Arabic poets today. Below is the author/translator tour schedule for this fall. Check back here or the Margellos WRL Facebook page for more updates in October!

Monday, October 1, 2012 Amherst Books 8 Main Street, Amherst, MA 8:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing Hosted by the Creative Writing Center at Amherst College

Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Harvard University Rethinking Translation Seminar Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, Barker 133 6:00 PM Reading and Discussion

Wednesday, October 3, 2012 Boston University The BU Castle, 225 Bay State Road, Boston MA 12-2 PM Conversation & Poetry Reading Lunch will be served before and during the talk

Thursday, October 4, 2012 Brandeis University Mandel Center for Humanities, Room 303 (The Reading Room) Waltham, MA 5:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing

Monday, October 8, 2012 Scripps College Hampton Room, Malott Commons, Scripps College, Claremont, CA 7:15 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing

Wednesday, October 10, 2012 University of Texas at Austin 12 -1 PM Class visit to Introduction to Creative Writing, CBA 4.124
7 PM Poetry reading (with Fady Joudah), UTC 3.124, 
8:30 PM Reception

Monday, October 15, 2012 Yale University Whitney Humanities Center, Room 208 New Haven, CT 5:00 PM Poetry Reading

Tuesday, October 16, 2012 New York State Writers Institute • SUNY Albany 4:15 PM Informal Q&A with students 8:00 PM Poetry Reading

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 Asian American Writers Workshop NY 110-112 West 27th St, NYC 7:00 PM Translation Night at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Headliners: Fady Joudah and Ghassan Zaqtan; other participants: Jeffrey Yang, Sinan Antoon, and Susan Bernofsky

Thursday, October 18, 2012 New York University The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies (The Richard Ettinghausen Library at the Hagop Kevorkian Center) 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM, 50 Washington Square South at 255 Sullivan St

Thursday, October 18, 2012 Columbia University 8:00 PM, Room 509, Knox Hall 606 W 122nd Street, New York

Friday, October 19, 2012 Georgetown University Lannan Center Conference Room / New North 408 Noon to 2:00 PM

Wednesday, October 24, 2012 Westmont College Winter Hall 210, Campus of Westmont College, Santa Barbara 4:00 PM Poetry Reading & Book Signing

Thursday, October 25, 2012 University of California Los Angeles Exact Location TBD, Campus of UCLA, Los Angeles 3:00 PM Poetry Reading

Monday, October 29, 2012 Rice University/University of Houston UH / Rice University Visiting Writers Series Honors Commons 5:30 PM Poetry Reading