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Quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely

“In a sense, I never got over Robert Lowell's History. A flawed, infinitely brilliant project I never tire of going back to. It's a modern Inferno, where Lowell plays both Dante and Virgil, guiding us through dozens of illuminating, bitter episodes from human history, all the while managing to hold a mirror to our confused hominid face as it squints at eternity and fails to grasp any of it.”

Quote by Andre Naffis-Sahely

Author

Andre Naffis-Sahely

Andre Naffis-Sahely is a British poet born in 1985. His works blend various cultural elements and explore themes such as identity, memory, and travel. more

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“I came to poetry at fourteen, in the middle of a booming oil-rush town in southern Arabia without a single public library: Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. All the wealth in the world and not a single intelligent idea as to how to employ it.”

World Ideas Wealth United Middle Intelligent Towns Library Oil Southern Arabia Fourteen Public Library Emirates

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“That boom town [Abu Dhabi] proved to be the reef against which my family crashed, the story of many who seek the promised land, and my poetry is a versification of that personal history. History is all I have.”

Stories Land My Family Towns Poetry Is Reefs Promised Land Personal History

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“I don't like poems that invent memories, I have enough of my own.”

Enough Memories My Own

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“I 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.”

Knows Trying I Can Walks Clever Forests Hawks

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“Poetry either pulses with real life or it's just an aborted simulacra. There's no middle ground.”

Real Middle Real Life Pulse Middle Ground

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“Translators who choose to work on canonized writers can usually lean on an extensive critical apparatus around either the author or the book in question, especially in the case of writers like [Honore] Balzac and [Emil] Zola.”

Book Cases Critical Translators Balzac Zola

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“Dealing with politically-engaged writers of color like Abdellatif Laâbi and Rashid Boudjedra - who ran away from school aged sixteen to fight against the French in the Algerian war - first requires convincing an editor to take a chance on them, which very few like to do these days.”

Firsts War School Fighting Chance Color These Days Ran Engaged Editors Convincing Take A Chance Sixteen

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views.”

People Writing Stills I Can Strong Views Boss Very Strong

Author:Tony Judt

“Generally risk-averse, specialist translation imprints have also hollowed out a fairly comfortable niche for themselves: they get ninety percent of the profits for ten percent of the work, often largely funding their operations - and their salaries - through grants that they don't even apply for. If it wasn't for publicly-funded arts bodies and organizations such as PEN, I wouldn't have been able to work on either [Abdellatif] Laâbi or [ Rashid ] Boudjedra.”

Ifs Has Beens Art Body Able Risk Ten Comfortable Percent Organization Profit Operations Grants Pens Ninety Translations Salary Funding Niche Specialists

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely

“Everyone wants to be open and inclusive, but nobody wants to pay for it. It's the biggest roadblock to translating living writers, especially poets.”

Want Pay Poet Translate Roadblock

Author:Andre Naffis-Sahely