When it comes to the challenges of the actual process, I soldier on as best I can, on my own.
Andre Naffis-SahelyI can't quite see the point of poems like "Wittgenstein Goes for a Walk with A Hawk in Sherwood Forest." I know they're trying to be clever, but they're not.
Andre Naffis-SahelyRegardless of whether the authors I've translated have been "dead and canonized," or "living and established," or even simply "emerging," I must put myself to the same, old test: "can I do their texts justice?" I've translated twenty-one books, and except for three commissions, I "hand-picked" all my authors on the basis of whether my own peculiar idiosyncrasies would complement their own.
Andre Naffis-SahelyThe average political poem - especially the kind that wears this label all too proudly - is both dull and full of brow-beating triteness.
Andre Naffis-SahelyI'm mostly surprised by the fact he's still alive; given that people have been trying to silence him for almost fifty years, he really shouldn't be. Aged thirty, Abdellatif [Laรขbi's ] was kidnapped from his home in Rabat by plainclothes policemen, bundled into the back of an unmarked car, driven to a dingy gaol, and tortured for days on end.
Andre Naffis-Sahely