To Translate Octavia Butler: Race, History, and Sci-Fi

Mona Kareem is a writer, literary scholar, and Arabic-English literary translator. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from SUNY Binghamton, and has taught at SUNY Binghamton, Rutgers, Bronx Community College, and University of Maryland. She is the author of three poetry collections, and most recently, the trilingual chapbook Femme Ghosts (2019). She has held fellowships with the Arab-American National Museum, Poetry International, BANFF Center, Norwich Center, and Forum Transregionale Studien.

Kareem’s English translation of Ashraf Fayadh’s Instructions Within was nominated for the Best Translated Book Award in 2016 and was reprinted by English PEN in 2017. Her selected translations of Iraqi poet Ra’ad Abdul Qader will be published by Ugly Duckling Presse in Spring 2021. She is currently translating Octavia Butler’s Kindred to Arabic, to be released by Takween publishing.

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