Professor Emeritus of Middle East Literature
antons@umich.edu
Education/Degree:
English and Arabic literatures, Art History, Hebrew University in JerusalemAbout
A Palestinian writer and translator of Arabic, Hebrew and English, Anton Shammas has been teaching Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, since 1997.
He is the author of three books of poetry (in Hebrew and Arabic); two plays; many essays in English, Hebrew and Arabic; and a novel, Arabesques, originally published in Hebrew (1986) and translated into 8 languages. Upon its American publication in 1988, Arabesques was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best seven fiction works of 1988.
His essays, on the current cultural and political scene in the Middle East, and on his linguistic autobiography in between three languages, have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine. He has translated from and into Arabic, Hebrew and English, playwrights, writers and poets such as: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Athol Fugard, Dario Fo, Emile Habiby, Mahmoud Darwish, and Taha Muhammad Ali.
Research interests:
Modern Arabic literature; the Arab Nah∂ah and the intellectual history of the 19th century in the Levant and Egypt.
PUBLICATIONS
https://umich.academia.edu/AntonShammas
Selected Essays
“Torture into Affidavit, Dispossession into Poetry: On Translating Palestinian Pain,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 44 No. 1, 2017.
“The Drowned Library” (Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 101, Winter 2015.
“The Size of a Cloud: on the Poetry of Ṭāhā Muḥammad ‘Alī” (Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 96, Fall 2013, p. 21-29.
“Palestine Mapped Out: A Passport Story” (a photo-essay in Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies, Arabic), Beirut, No. 92, Fall 2012, p. 13-29.
“Returning to Beirut: Nostalgia, Cities of Language and Capitals of Fantasy” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, Nov. 16, 2003. (Keynote speech given at “Home Works II,” a Forum on Cultural Practices, organized by “Ashkāl Alwān,” The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Beirut, Lebanon. Nov. 1, 2003).
“Introduction,” to Passage to Dusk, a novel by Rashīd al-Da‘īf, tr. from Arabic by Nirvana Tanoukhi, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001, p. 1-10.
“Literature As Pretext: The Image of the Absent Palestinian in Modern Hebrew Literature” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, May 16, 1998.
“West Jerusalem: Falafel, Cultural Cannibalism and the Poetics of Palestinian Space” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, August 23, 1997.
“Autocartography,” The Threepenny Review, Fall 1995. (Excerpted in the June 1996 issue of Harper's Magazine.)
“Palestinians in Israel,” The Journal of the International Institute (University of Michigan), Fall 1995.
“Palestinians Must Now Master the Art of Forgetting,” The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 26, 1993.
“A Lost Voice,” The New York Times Magazine, April 28, 1991.
“Amérka, Amérka,” Harper's magazine, February 1991.
“On a Camel Moving Forward in Time” (a review of Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus. Norton, 1989), The New York Times Book Review, March 12, 1989.
“The Shroud of Mahfouz,” The New York Review of Books, February 2, 1989.
“The Morning After,” The New York Review of Books, September 29, 1988.
“A Stone's Throw,” The New York Review of Books, March 31, 1988.
“Arab Walls, Reflecting Change,” Harper's Magazine, November 1987.
“Kitsch 22,” Tikkun Magazine, September-October 1987.
Published Essays in Edited Volumes:
“De la torture à l’affidavit: traduire la douleur palestinienne,” traduit de l’anglais par Hélène Boisson, inPalestine: territoure, mémoire, projection(Rasha Salti, ed.; Marseille: Édition du Mucem, 2017).
“The Nightmare of the Translator,” in Reflections on Islamic Art(a collection of essays, in respective English and Arabic editions, on the Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar), ed. Ahdaf Soueif (Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2011).
“The Meeting That Was, the Meeting That Wasn’t,” in Hebrew Writers: on Writing, trans. and ed. by Peter Cole (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2008; the original Hebrew essay was published in 1984).
“Mixed as in Pidgin: The Vanishing Arabic of a ‘Bilingual’ City,” in Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Ethnically Mixed Towns in Israel/Palestine, ed. by Rabinowitz and Monterescu (London: Ashgate, 2007).
“Returning to Beirut “ (English and Arabic), Home Works II, published by “Ashkal Alwan,” The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts (Beirut, Lebanon. Summer 2005).
“The Drowned Library,” in Lives in Translation: bilingual writers on identity and creativity, edited by Isabelle de Courtivron (Palgrave Macmillan / St. Martin’s Press, 2003).
“Geister,” and “Autokartographie: Der Fall Palestine, Michigan,” in Rafik Schami, ed., ANGST: im eigenen land(Zurich: Nagel & Kimchi, 2001), p. 32-41, 114-125.
“Autocartography: The Case of Palestine, Michigan,” in The Geography of Identity, ed. by Patricia Yaeger (The University of Michigan Press, 1996).
“Arab Male, Hebrew Female: The Lure of Metaphors,” in Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East,ed. by Göçek and Balaghi (Columbia University Press, 1994).
“Amérka, Amérka,” in Visions of America, ed. by Wesley Brown & Amy Ling (New York: Persea Press, 1993).
“Cultural Identity and the Crisis of Representation,” in Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing, ed. by Philomena Mariani (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991).
“At Half Mast,” in New Perspectives on Israeli History, ed. by Laurence Silberstein (New York University Press, 1991).
“Exile from a Democracy,” in Literature in Exile, ed. by John Glad (Duke University Press, 1990).
Books
Arabesques, a novel written originally in Hebrew (Arabeskot) and published in Israel in 1986, since published in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Portuguese..
The Biggest Liar in the World (a children's book in Hebrew. Jerusalem, 1982).
Poetry
Poems (Arabic. Jerusalem, 1974).
Hardcover (Hebrew. Tel-Aviv, 1974).
No Man's Land (Hebrew. Tel-Aviv, 1979).
Plays
Ghassil Wijjak ya Aamar (Wash your Face, Moon - Arabic), for "The Arab Theater," Haifa, 1997.
Stuffed Ducks, a play in progress (Hebrew and English), for River Arts, Woodstock, 1989.
Ta'ah bil-hayt (A Hole in the Wall), a bilingual play for young adults, in Arabic and Hebrew, "Haifa Theater," 1978-79.
Areas of Research
Translation Theory; Critical Theory; Narratolog; Torture and Pain; Nahḍah Studies; Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literatures.
About
A Palestinian writer and translator of Arabic, Hebrew and English, Anton Shammas has been teaching Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, since 1997.
He is the author of three books of poetry (in Hebrew and Arabic); two plays; many essays in English, Hebrew and Arabic; and a novel, Arabesques, originally published in Hebrew (1986) and translated into 8 languages. Upon its American publication in 1988, Arabesques was chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best seven fiction works of 1988.
His essays, on the current cultural and political scene in the Middle East, and on his linguistic autobiography in between three languages, have been published in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Magazine. He has translated from and into Arabic, Hebrew and English, playwrights, writers and poets such as: Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee, Athol Fugard, Dario Fo, Emile Habiby, Mahmoud Darwish, and Taha Muhammad Ali.
Research interests:
Modern Arabic literature; the Arab Nah∂ah and the intellectual history of the 19th century in the Levant and Egypt.
PUBLICATIONS
https://umich.academia.edu/AntonShammas
Selected Essays
“Torture into Affidavit, Dispossession into Poetry: On Translating Palestinian Pain,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 44 No. 1, 2017.
“The Drowned Library” (Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 101, Winter 2015.
“The Size of a Cloud: on the Poetry of Ṭāhā Muḥammad ‘Alī” (Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies), Beirut, No. 96, Fall 2013, p. 21-29.
“Palestine Mapped Out: A Passport Story” (a photo-essay in Arabic), Majallat al-Dirasāt al-Filistīniyyah(Journal of Palestine Studies, Arabic), Beirut, No. 92, Fall 2012, p. 13-29.
“Returning to Beirut: Nostalgia, Cities of Language and Capitals of Fantasy” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, Nov. 16, 2003. (Keynote speech given at “Home Works II,” a Forum on Cultural Practices, organized by “Ashkāl Alwān,” The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Beirut, Lebanon. Nov. 1, 2003).
“Introduction,” to Passage to Dusk, a novel by Rashīd al-Da‘īf, tr. from Arabic by Nirvana Tanoukhi, The University of Texas at Austin, 2001, p. 1-10.
“Literature As Pretext: The Image of the Absent Palestinian in Modern Hebrew Literature” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, May 16, 1998.
“West Jerusalem: Falafel, Cultural Cannibalism and the Poetics of Palestinian Space” (Arabic), An-Nahār Cultural Supplement, Beirut, August 23, 1997.
“Autocartography,” The Threepenny Review, Fall 1995. (Excerpted in the June 1996 issue of Harper's Magazine.)
“Palestinians in Israel,” The Journal of the International Institute (University of Michigan), Fall 1995.
“Palestinians Must Now Master the Art of Forgetting,” The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 26, 1993.
“A Lost Voice,” The New York Times Magazine, April 28, 1991.
“Amérka, Amérka,” Harper's magazine, February 1991.
“On a Camel Moving Forward in Time” (a review of Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus. Norton, 1989), The New York Times Book Review, March 12, 1989.
“The Shroud of Mahfouz,” The New York Review of Books, February 2, 1989.
“The Morning After,” The New York Review of Books, September 29, 1988.
“A Stone's Throw,” The New York Review of Books, March 31, 1988.
“Arab Walls, Reflecting Change,” Harper's Magazine, November 1987.
“Kitsch 22,” Tikkun Magazine, September-October 1987.
Published Essays in Edited Volumes:
“De la torture à l’affidavit: traduire la douleur palestinienne,” traduit de l’anglais par Hélène Boisson, inPalestine: territoure, mémoire, projection(Rasha Salti, ed.; Marseille: Édition du Mucem, 2017).
“The Nightmare of the Translator,” in Reflections on Islamic Art(a collection of essays, in respective English and Arabic editions, on the Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar), ed. Ahdaf Soueif (Qatar: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2011).
“The Meeting That Was, the Meeting That Wasn’t,” in Hebrew Writers: on Writing, trans. and ed. by Peter Cole (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 2008; the original Hebrew essay was published in 1984).
“Mixed as in Pidgin: The Vanishing Arabic of a ‘Bilingual’ City,” in Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities: Historical Narratives, Spatial Dynamics Gender Relations and Cultural Encounters in Ethnically Mixed Towns in Israel/Palestine, ed. by Rabinowitz and Monterescu (London: Ashgate, 2007).
“Returning to Beirut “ (English and Arabic), Home Works II, published by “Ashkal Alwan,” The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts (Beirut, Lebanon. Summer 2005).
“The Drowned Library,” in Lives in Translation: bilingual writers on identity and creativity, edited by Isabelle de Courtivron (Palgrave Macmillan / St. Martin’s Press, 2003).
“Geister,” and “Autokartographie: Der Fall Palestine, Michigan,” in Rafik Schami, ed., ANGST: im eigenen land(Zurich: Nagel & Kimchi, 2001), p. 32-41, 114-125.
“Autocartography: The Case of Palestine, Michigan,” in The Geography of Identity, ed. by Patricia Yaeger (The University of Michigan Press, 1996).
“Arab Male, Hebrew Female: The Lure of Metaphors,” in Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East,ed. by Göçek and Balaghi (Columbia University Press, 1994).
“Amérka, Amérka,” in Visions of America, ed. by Wesley Brown & Amy Ling (New York: Persea Press, 1993).
“Cultural Identity and the Crisis of Representation,” in Critical Fictions: The Politics of Imaginative Writing, ed. by Philomena Mariani (Seattle: Bay Press, 1991).
“At Half Mast,” in New Perspectives on Israeli History, ed. by Laurence Silberstein (New York University Press, 1991).
“Exile from a Democracy,” in Literature in Exile, ed. by John Glad (Duke University Press, 1990).
Books
Arabesques, a novel written originally in Hebrew (Arabeskot) and published in Israel in 1986, since published in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Portuguese..
The Biggest Liar in the World (a children's book in Hebrew. Jerusalem, 1982).
Poetry
Poems (Arabic. Jerusalem, 1974).
Hardcover (Hebrew. Tel-Aviv, 1974).
No Man's Land (Hebrew. Tel-Aviv, 1979).
Plays
Ghassil Wijjak ya Aamar (Wash your Face, Moon - Arabic), for "The Arab Theater," Haifa, 1997.
Stuffed Ducks, a play in progress (Hebrew and English), for River Arts, Woodstock, 1989.
Ta'ah bil-hayt (A Hole in the Wall), a bilingual play for young adults, in Arabic and Hebrew, "Haifa Theater," 1978-79.
Areas of Research
Translation Theory; Critical Theory; Narratolog; Torture and Pain; Nahḍah Studies; Modern Arabic and Hebrew Literatures.
