缺席理論 The Theory of Absence

Following the convening of Hong Kong International Poetry Nights 2013, The World of Words is a collection of selected works by some of the most internationally acclaimed poets today. The poem of "The Theory of Absence" by Dunya Mikhail (Iraq) is finest contemporary poetry in trilingual or bilingual presentation.

敦雅．米卡埃爾，美籍伊拉克詩人，1965年生於巴格達，90年代中期離開伊拉克而遷至美國密西根州，曾任《巴格達觀察家報》記者，作品風格「顛覆」，2011 年獲頒「聯合國創作自由人道獎」，伊利沙伯．溫斯洛則以翻譯其詩作贏得「2004 美國筆會翻譯獎」。米卡埃爾的第一本英文詩集《戰爭勞苦功高》(New Directions , 2005; Carcanet , 2006) 入圍葛里芬獎，同時獲紐約公共圖書館評為2005年25大書籍之一，並由伊蓮娜．智娣翻譯成意大利文，經Edizioni San Marco dei Giustiniani出版( 2001)。她的《外海之浪的日記》(New Directions, 2009) 則獲得「2010阿拉伯美國書獎」，最新詩作《伊拉克之夜》將於2014年由New Directions 出版。

Dunya Mikhail, Iraqi-American poet, was born in Baghdad in 1965 and left Iraq to Michigan, USA in the mid-1990s. She has worked as a journalist for The Baghdad Observer and her work was found “subversive.” She was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing in 2001, and her translator, Elizabeth Winslow, won a 2004 Pen Translation Fund Award. Her first book in English, The War Works Hard (New Directions, 2005; Carcanet, 2006), was shortlisted for the Griffin Prize and was named one of the twenty-five books to remember in 2005 by the New York Public Library. It was also translated into Italian by Elena Chiti and published by Edizioni San Marco dei Giustiniani (2011). Mikhail’s Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (New Directions, 2009) won the 2010 Arab American Book Award. Her new poetry book The Iraqi Nights is coming from New Directions in 2014.

1.戰爭勞苦功高 The War Works Hard 6

2.鞋匠 Shoemaker 15

3.囚犯 the Prisoner 18

4.當時的我過於匆忙 I Was in a Hurry 24

5.缺席理論 The Theory of Absence 30

6.兒童藝術家 The Artist Child 34

7.代詞 Pronouns 40

8.世界的形狀 The Shape of the World 43

9.在魚池 In the Aquarium 46

10.來自另一個時代的歌 song from Another Time 49

11.香港 Hong Kong 52

世界的形狀

 

如果世界是平的，

猶如一塊飛毯，

憂傷就會有始有終。

 

如果世界是方的，

當戰爭玩起捉迷藏的遊戲，

我們就能找一個角落藏身。

 

如果世界是圓的，

我們的夢會在風車上輪迴旋轉，

我們就會平起平坐。

 

(薛慶國譯)

 

The Shape of the World

 

If the world were flat

like magic carpet,

our sorrow would have a beginning and an end.

 

If the world were square,

we would hide in one of the corners

whenever the war played hide and seek.”

 

If the world were round,

our dreams would take turns in the ferris wheel,

and we would be equal.

 

(Translated by Elizabeth Winslow)