Sages of Darkness

Previously unavailable in English, Salim Barakat’s Sages of Darkness depicts Kurdish life in the period of transition from a traditional tribal existence to half-hearted modernization under the Ottomans. A saga of the lives and deaths of two Kurdish chieftains and their families, it is filled with fantasy, humor and wonder as well as tragedy and devotion to the futile, and delves into the intertwined workings of history, mythology and memory. It is a landmark of Kurdish literature.

The translator, Aviva Butt, has meticulously developed a fitting vocabulary to render Barakat’s poetic Arabic into English. The translation is accompanied by extensive notes, some of which explain the translator’s rationale in relation to particular moments in the text. With her deep knowledge of Middle Eastern texts, including the Hebrew Bible and the Qur’an, she brings unique skills and breadth of understanding to a subtle rendering of what was previously considered impossible to translate. A critical Introduction alerts the reader to what is to come, the new and otherwise unexpected.