Full Description
Guest-edited by Razieh Araghi and Jaideep Pandey, this special issue explores the rich, multilingual, and transregional literary worlds shaped by and within the Islamicate sphere.
From the Mughal court to Metro Detroit, from Malayalam ghazals to Kurdish-inflected Persian prison poetry, this issue brings together literary translations and critical reflections that unsettle assumptions about language, identity, and belonging. Rather than framing the Islamicate as a fixed geography or religious category, Absinthe 31 approaches it as a set of fluid crossings—linguistic, cultural, historical, and affective.
The issue features work in and from an expansive range of languages, including Persian, Arabic, Malayalam, Kurdish, Assamese, Amazigh, Armeno-Turkish, Dari, and Urdu—foregrounding both canonical and marginalized voices. It includes new English translations of ghazals, sīrahs, biographies, and poems originally written by poets and thinkers working across sectarian, linguistic, and national boundaries, and often negotiating minority or diasporic positionalities.
In addition to the translated works, many contributions are accompanied by translator commentaries that reflect on the ethics, politics, and poetics of translating from within the Islamicate literary landscape. Together, they suggest that translation is not just a means of access, but a mode of thinking—a method native to the Islamicate tradition itself. Spanning from the premodern courts of empire to contemporary diasporic communities, Absinthe 31 offers readers a vibrant and pluralistic vision of the Islamicate as a dynamic literary terrain shaped by continual movement, negotiation, and transformation.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Rethinking the Islamicate Through Translation: Crossings and Currents
by Jaideep Pandey and Razieh Aragahi
"Sepia Veils and White-Flowered Branches" (1989), by Forugh Karimi
Translated by Anna Learn
The Story of Sarwan and Farijan as told variously by the people of Punjab (1800s), by Captain R. C. Temple
Translated by Tara Dhaliwal
"Cries of Women, Dance of Flames:" Farzad Kamangar's Letter from Prison on International Women's Day (2008), by Farzad Kamangar
Translated by Tyler Fisher and Haidar Khezri
Ghazals in Malayalam (early 2000s), by Venu V. Desam, Satchidanandan, ONV Kurup, Shahabaz Aman, Vijay Sursen, Rafeeq Ahamed
Translated by Ibrahim Badshah
The Path of the Truth (ca. 1830), by Abdul Jalal Zulqad Ali
Translated by Bikash K Bhattacharya
Karnama-yi Munir (17th century), by Abu'l Barakat "Munir" Lahori
Translated by Sunil Sharma
Nabi Nāṇayam (Prophet's Coin) (late 19th, early 20th century), by Sanaullah Makti Thangal
Translated by Mu'sab Abdul Salam
"Horse-Cart Rider" (1954), by Thankamma Malik
Translated by Ziyana Fazal
Ibrāhīmkuṭṭi Musliyāṟ's Muḥyuddīn mawlūdinṟe tarjuma (The translation of Muḥyuddīn's hagiography) (1887), by Koṅṅaṇaṃvīṭṭil Ibrāhīmkuṭṭi Musliyāṟ
Translated by Ihsan Ul-Ihthisam, Ameen Perumannil Sidhick, Afeef Ahmed
"Reading the Letter" (1949), by Essafi Moumen Ali
Translated by Ali Abdeddine and Adeli Block
The Pearl Cannon (1947), by Sadeq Hedayat
Translated by Mostafa Abedinifard
Three Islamicate Songs from Metro Detroit (1920s, 1940s), by Louis Wardini; Achilleas Poulos; one author unknown
Translated by Graham Liddell, Michael Pifer, and Kristin Dickinson
