Interview by Özge Ercan
The Turjuman Translation Award, regarded as one of the most distinguished prizes in the literary world, went this year to Alfa Publishing Group and translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin for the translation of Ibn Hazm’s The Ring of the Dove, published by Kapı Yayınları. Saadet Özen, editor-in-chief of Everest Yayınları, on behalf of Alfa Publishing Group, and translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin were in the United Arab Emirates to receive the award. We wanted to talk about this important award with both of them.
The 2024 Turjuman Translation Award – presented during the Sharjah International Book Fair, held for 43 years and one of the most prestigious in the world, and itself among the most prestigious awards in its field – was given to Alfa Publishing Group and translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin for the translation of Ibn Hazm’s The Ring of the Dove, published by Kapı Yayınları. We talked with Suçin about the Sharjah Translation Award he recently received, the award-winning translation, how well Arabic literature is known in the world and in Turkey, and his latest translation, from al-Mutanabbi.
This year, together with Alfa Publishing Group, you received the Sharjah Translation Award – also known as the Turjuman Translation Award – presented during the Sharjah International Book Fair, which has been held in the Emirate of Sharjah for 43 years, for your translation of The Ring of the Dove by Ibn Hazm, one of the major figures of tenth-century al-Andalus. How did you decide to translate this book, and how long did it take?
I decided to translate The Ring of the Dove at the suggestion of the poet Ömer Erdem, editor-in-chief of Kapı Yayınları within Alfa Publishing Group. Because I was very busy the translation was somewhat delayed, but with Ömer Erdem’s persistent encouragement I completed it. I must also mention the efforts of the editor Süleyman Sertkaya to publish the translation with magnificent visual material. My earlier book-length translations had mostly been of modern Arabic literature. Leaving aside my poetic translation of the first juz’ of the Holy Qur’an, titled Şiir Şiir Ayetler, this book was where I began translating from the classical Arabic corpus. The Ring of the Dove was followed by Hayy ibn Yaqzan, The Seven Suspended Odes, The Book of Idols, and most recently The Song of Man, my selection from al-Mutanabbi.
This translation award has been given for the past seven years. What, in your view, does it mean that a translator from Turkey has won it this year?
This is the first time the award has gone to a translator and publisher from Turkey. As far as I know, both the translator and the publisher are assessed against certain parameters. Although the award goes to one work, the translator’s record and the body of work they have translated are also taken into account. The same applies to the publisher: the works the publisher has systematically published in the field of Arabic language and literature, how well those works represent Arabic literature, distribution networks and so on are considered. When our capacities were combined with those of Alfa Publishing Group, the result was the award. I should add that the jury consists of highly respected orientalists who have made their names in Arabic language and literature. That this award, hitherto given to Western publishers and translators, was given to us for the first time is a source of pride for Turkey. I hope it will help increase Turkish publishers’ interest in quality Arabic literature.
To talk a little about the award-winning The Ring of the Dove: what makes this book important?
In my view, The Ring of the Dove can be read not only as an Andalusian-Islamic-Arabic classic but also as a world classic. It is notable for its “hybrid” nature in terms of genre. By presenting examples of love taken from real lives through distilled generalisations, the book has the air of an essay. Yet its autobiographical side also gives it a narrative quality, and its inclusion here and there of real-life stories gives it a fictional character as well. It is also a multilayered text in which prose and poetry intertwine, the prose at times wandering at the borders of poetry.
In the book’s Introduction, Ibn Hazm includes the letter of a friend who had written to him repeatedly asking him to set down the states of love in a book; this removes the barriers of time and place between author and reader. This story, evidently part of the book’s fiction, spurs the reader’s interest in the text of an author who lived a thousand years ago. The book can also be read not only as Ibn Hazm’s personal history but as a political history of the cities and dynasties of al-Andalus.
The text also has psychological, aesthetic and ethical dimensions. Psychologically, while analysing the various states of love on the basis of the author’s experiences and observations, the book boldly penetrates the world of pleasure and the body in the Andalusian period. Yet Ibn Hazm presents this feast of pleasure and the body with an ingenious approach, balancing it with the blessing of love, morality and piety, under the social pressure that his identity as a religious scholar and theorist of legal doctrine imposed.
Ibn Hazm treats love not only as a psychological phenomenon but also in the context of the human pursuit of desire. He handles the real-life stories of people who fell in love with an approach that was bold for the conditions of his time. Rather than seeing love as a feeling to be suppressed, he chooses to interpret these feelings by subjecting them to structural analysis. This reflects his understanding not only of love but of human nature.
So what does The Ring of the Dove say to people today?
In this book Ibn Hazm goes to the roots of human experience and draws attention to the complexity of love, its strengths and weaknesses. Seeking to grasp and analyse every detail of love, he explains that people may feel weak in the face of jealousy, regret, joy, pain and even feelings and behaviour that seem irrational or unpredictable. By carefully describing these emotions, Ibn Hazm allows readers to recognise their own feelings and to try to understand the reasons for their actions and reactions, thereby gaining greater self-awareness. When individuals understand their emotions and become aware of their own weaknesses, they become more empathetic towards others and avoid harsh or hasty judgements about others’ actions. With these qualities, The Ring of the Dove can also be read as a practical “historical” guide to help people deal with their emotions rationally and calmly.
Through the stories and experiences of lovers, Ibn Hazm invites readers to learn from the experiences of others and use them to avoid making the same mistakes. The book thus serves as a mirror reflecting one’s emotions, allowing one to mature and to understand deeply both one’s own feelings and those of others. The Ring of the Dove also offers an alternative perspective, showing that lofty values such as love, compassion and closeness are the foundations on which a society free of hatred can be built – one where inner peace and harmonious togetherness prevail, human bonds are strengthened and conflicts are minimised.
How well is Arabic literature known in the world and in Turkey?
Arabic literature, which holds a rich historical and cultural heritage, is a literature that has influenced world literature, especially through the Arab-Islamic classics. First of all, the Baghdad-centred translation movement of the eighth to tenth centuries created a unique synergy. Translations were made into Arabic from Greek, Syriac, Middle Persian, Sanskrit and Nabataean, building up an immense corpus of translations. On the one hand these translations gave rise to Islamic philosophy; on the other they served as a bridge between antiquity and the Western Enlightenment.
The Thousand and One Nights, meanwhile, became the main source of fantastic literature in the West. Read Borges’s texts and interviews and you will be amazed at how familiar he was with classical Arabic literature: in his work you find many traces of Arabic literature, from the Mu‘allaqat to the maqamat and folk tales. Similar traces, to a greater or lesser degree, can be found in some texts by Dante, Goethe, Boccaccio, Hugo, Poe and William Blake. Doesn’t the fact that the German original of Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan bears on its cover the Arabic phrase al-Diwan al-Sharqi li’l-Mu’allif al-Gharbi – “The Eastern Diwan of the Western Author” – say a great deal in this respect?
As far as I know, besides The Ring of the Dove you have also translated works such as the pre-Islamic poetry anthology The Seven Suspended Odes (Mu‘allaqat) and Hayy ibn Yaqzan. In recent months your selection of poems by the tenth-century Arab poet al-Mutanabbi, titled The Song of Man, was published. What would you like to tell our readers about your latest translation?
To help readers picture al-Mutanabbi, let me put it this way: what Shakespeare is to the English, Dante to the Italians and Hugo to the French, al-Mutanabbi is to the Arabs. Yet in many of his poems al-Mutanabbi became the “modernist” voice of classical Arabic poetry. Reading many of his poems, one feels as if one were reading a “modern” poet. A magnificent harmony accompanies the lyrical, epic and at times even pastoral voice of his poetry. This is probably why he had not been translated into Turkish until now – leaving aside, of course, the prose translations full of brackets made by quoting his poetry in academic theses.
My basic approach in all my translations of Arabic poetry is to create a balanced poetic language in which neither form nor content is sacrificed to the other. In doing so, I try to recreate the poet’s original voice in Turkish. Although this approach sometimes leads to small losses, I try to compensate for them somehow in the target language. If I cannot compensate, I make my choice in favour of content.
Finally, would you share a few lines from al-Mutanabbi with us?
Of course – let me share some lines from a love poem (in my Turkish translation):
Ne zaman baş başa kalsak Şamlı kızla
Hemen bakışlarını diker yüzüme
Gözlerimi öptüğünü zannetsem de ben
Kendi dudaklarıdır onun öptüğü gözlerimde
Keşke gözlerimin içinde kalsa Şamlı kız
Ve gözlerim ona bir barınak olsa
Her yaralının iyileşmesi için bir ümit var
Onun bakışlarının yaraladığı kalplerden başka
Her gülümseyişinde ıslanır yanaklarım
Şimşekleri dişleri olan bir yağmurla
Elimdeki kokuları saç örgülerinden yayılan
Karıştırıyorum şarabıma
Güzellerin üstüne perde çekilen bir diyarda
Yok Şamlı kızın eşi benzeri güzelliğinde
Seviyorum buraları Humus’tan Hunâsira’ya kadar
Kim sevmiyor ki büyüdüğü diyarları
Burada birleşti: Şamlının yanağı,
Ağzım, şarap ve Lübnan elması.
Saadet Özen: “We will undertake projects that do greater justice to Arabic literature”
The 2024 Turjuman Translation Award, presented during the Sharjah International Book Fair, was given to Alfa Publishing Group and translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin for the translation of Ibn Hazm’s The Ring of the Dove, published by Kapı Yayınları. Representing Alfa Publishing Group, Saadet Özen, editor-in-chief of Everest Yayınları, was at the fair with Mehmet Hakkı Suçin to receive the award. We talked with her about the significance of the Turjuman Translation Award and its possible contribution to contemporary Arabic literature.
How did Alfa Publishing Group decide to bring this book to Turkish readers?
Alfa Publishing Group has been publishing translations from many different languages for thirty-two years. Within our group, Everest Yayınları, Alfa Yayınları and Kapı Yayınları have all adopted this inclusiveness as a publishing policy; indeed, we have many books, both classics and contemporary authors, from The Thousand and One Nights to Adonis, from al-Mutanabbi to Mahmoud Darwish. Ibn Hazm’s The Ring of the Dove is one of our books published by Kapı Yayınları from this perspective – a fine product of the collaboration between Kapı’s editor-in-chief Ömer Erdem and our esteemed translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin.
How do you interpret the fact that a translator from Turkey has won this important translation award?
The Turjuman Award rewards both the publisher and the translator. In that sense, it is very encouraging for us that a line we have followed for years has been noticed and that our future projects have been trusted. It also means that the collaboration of a publisher and a translator from Turkey in the field of translation has attracted international attention. Of course we have never set our publishing line according to awards, and we never will; but we are glad it has been noticed.
Do we know contemporary Arabic literature well enough in Turkey? How will this award contribute to translations in this field?
In Turkey we mostly know contemporary Arabic literature through translations into other languages. Usually we hear about a work and read it if it has been translated into English or French, gained international attention or won an award. This award, and such support, gives impetus to discovering more at the source. The connections we made through the award, the publishers from different countries we met and, of course, perhaps most importantly, the presence of our esteemed translator Mehmet Hakkı Suçin will lead us to new authors and new works. Our work in this direction is moving ahead quickly.
Originally published in Turkish in Mikroscope, 17 December 2024. Translated from the Turkish for this site. The lines by al-Mutanabbi are given in Mehmet Hakkı Suçin’s Turkish translation.