Edgar Allen Poe

New Release: Translation of the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe into Arabic

The complete works of the macabre and quintessentially American poet Edgar Allan Poe are now available in Arabic, giving more readers the chance to be chilled

Ahram Online, Thursday, June 2, 2011

Egypt’s National Center for Translation has published the complete works of the American poet, Edgar Allan Poe. It is translated into Arabic by Ghada Al-Halawani and reviewed by the novelist Edward El-Kharrat. This comes as a part of a poetry series supervised by Dr Rania Fathi. The first volume is entitled The Valley of Anxiety.

Edgar Allan Poe, born in 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts, the American poet, critic and one of the greatest short story writers is one of the leaders of American Romanticism. His fame came from his macabre stories and poems that sometimes reach into science fiction. He invented the Gothic horror novels or detective literature.

As life imitates art, his death is surrounded by mystery: at the young age of forty he was oddly found wearing clothes that were not his. The cause of his death remains a mystery – as well as the location of his grave.

Ghada Al-Halawani in the introduction of her translation, which she dedicated to the late political thinker Dr Mohammed Sayed Said, points out that the influence of Edgar Allan Poe on the Western literature is indisputable, especially after Baudelaire eloquently translated Poe’s poems into French, which opened his works to more Western, high critics, who lionised him. He was and is today considered representative of the essence of American literature at its peak.

Critics were interested in Poe’s troubled life, leading to rumours that were eventually proven to be just that. Some see him as a false god and others see him as a poet of the first rank. Regardless, his influence remains profound and Halawani cites the warm reception of his poetry on Arab websites as one of the proofs.

The introduction reveals that there are five editions of Poe’s works in translation.The translator used the last version that everyone agreed that all its poems are attributed to Poe. It was published in 1849. She also points out that there are some difficulties that faced collecting Poe’s work, because they are spread in many periodicals. Another reason also is Poe’s passion in editing his poems in each copy that appeared during his life.

The translator describes in the introduction how she worked during the translation process, referencing Poe’s extensive reading and knowledge.

The translation includes some of the concepts Poe formulated about his writing experience in what he calls “the poetic principle,” revealing the true essence of poetry as he believes it.

The translator is also a short story writer. Some of her outstanding works are entitled Tingling, But How and Temporary Erase. She translated Models of Women’s Poetry, published by the National Project for Translation in 2005.