Jenny Lewis

With Adnan al Sayegh and Taj Kandoura (interpreter).

The seminar went very well – looking at Iraq and the poetry and literature that shaped it from pre-Islamic poetry until the present day. We read for the first time my translations (with Ruba Abughaida) of extracts from Adnan’s 500-page poem – Uruk’s Anthem and some of my Gilgamesh poems from Taking Mesopotamia. At the Q&A afterwards someone asked how we tackled translating each other poems and I said we sometimes drew, sometimes mimed and sometimes made faces to try to get meanings across.