I participated in the translation of his famous book “In praise of Ali”, from Arabic to English.
Truthfully, the initial translation of the book to the English language was very successful, thus encouraged me to translate more of Charbel Baini’s poetry. The reason this book is titled “joys and tears” is because his writing relates to some of his family members, who are also my kin, as Charbel and I are cousins, and his grievances and celebrations also become my own.
Some readers may say, these poems are composed solely for private family occasions, which may not be of interest to other people, but if we paused and thought about it , we would realize that we all have a father, a mother, a grandfather, a grandmother, an uncle, an aunt or a relative, and whatever befalls them, befalls us. We will then comprehend the real importance of these poems.
Judging by his joys and tears, we are able to define the poet Charbel Baini.
Is he humanitarian?
Is he an anarchist?
Is he selfish?
Is he a tender-loving person?
His cries are genuine and there are no false pretences about his happiness, he never changes, as he is a mirror of his true self. That is exactly what you are going to discover in his poems; the poet Charbel Baini unmasked.
As is always the case, no matter how brilliant the translator can be, there are parts that get lost in the translation, as there are no equivalent English words that can capture the essence of the beautiful Arabic language.
I know that I did my best to preserve and keep Charbel’s poetic picture and imagination in English as is it in Arabic. I only hope, I have succeeded in that endeavour... Happy reading!
Elias shaanin
Melbourne, Australia
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