Tuesday, March 17, 2009

omar kikili's balcony tale

The imtidad cultural blog of Libyan doctor and writer Ghazi Geblawi, a resident of London, has published a chilling little story by Omar Kikili. The story published by imtidad under the title of "While drinking tea: the incident of the opposite balcony' is from Kikili's collection 'Sana'a Mahaliya' meaning 'Local Product' published in Tripoli in 2000.

Kikili, born in 1953, is described as a renowned Libyan short storyteller who published his early works in the 1970’s. He has published two collections of short stories, and is working on a third collection titled 'Sejnyat' meaning 'Jail tales' ('sijn' is Arabic for jail) on the period when he spent ten years as a political prisoner in Libya.

The translation of the Libyan short story (and presumably this Kikili story has been translated from Arabic) is an area of some interest. It was given a boost by the publication of American scholar and diplomat Ethan Chorin's book Translating Libya: The Modern Libyan Short Story last year.

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