Issa J. Boullata
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Issa J. Boullata (‎; February 25, 1929 – May 1, 2019) was a Palestinian scholar, writer, and translator of Arabic literature.


Biography

He was born in Jerusalem on February 25, 1929 during the British
Mandate of Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Mandatory Palestine, Palestine and Emirate of Transjordan, Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following ...
. He obtained a First Class BA (Honours) in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1964 followed by a PhD in Arabic literature in 1969, both from the University of London. He taught Arabic studies for seven years at Hartford Seminary, Connecticut, before moving to McGill University, Montreal, in 1975.Profile in Words without Borders website
/ref> He taught graduate courses in Arabic Literature, Modern Arab Thought, and Qur'anic Studies at McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies until his retirement in 2004, and the honorific title of Emeritus Professor was conferred upon him on September 1, 2009. In his academic career in Hartford and Montreal, he was the supervisor of ten graduate students who wrote their PhD dissertations under his advice as well as thirty-eight who likewise wrote their MA theses——and some of these graduate students' works were later published. He lived in Montreal for 41 years and, since December 3, 2016, he has been living in a retired seniors' home in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Canada. Boullata is the author of several books on Arabic literature and poetry, and on the Qur'an. He has also written numerous articles and book reviews for scholarly journals, as well as articles for several encyclopedias. He is a noted translator of Arabic literature and is a two-time winner of the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award. He is a contributing editor of Banipal magazine of London, and his literary translations have appeared in several issues of the magazine. Boullata served as consultant for "The Blue Metropolis Al-Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize" offered by the Blue Metropolis Foundation at its annual international literary festival in Montreal. Named after the poet Al-Majidi Ibn Dhaher, the prize, worth CAD $5,000, was initiated in 2007 by his efforts with donors. The prize was sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, and was given yearly to a creative Arab writer at the recommendation of a jury composed of an international roster of poets, novelists and literary professionals. The prize is currently on hiatus. Marita Seward, of Oneonta, New York, was Boullata's wife for 56 years. She was a librarian at the University until her retirement and died on 15 August 2016. The couple had one daughter and three sons, including David Boullata, a broadcaster (pseudonym: David Tyler) in Montreal, communications lecturer, and writer.
Kamal Boullata Kamal Boullata (1942 − August 6, 2019) was a Palestinian artist and art historian. His works were primarily done in acrylic. His work was abstract in style, focusing on the ideas of division in Palestinian identity, separation from homeland. He ...
, a painter, art historian, and literary writer, is Issa Boullata's brother and lives in Berlin, Germany.


Books


As author

* ''Outlines of Romanticism in
Modern Arabic Poetry Arabic poetry ( ar, الشعر العربي ''ash-shi‘ru al-‘Arabīyyu'') is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that. Arabic poetry ...
'' (1960), new edition (2014) (in Arabic الرومانسية ومعالمها في الشعر العربي الحديث) * ''
Badr Shakir al-Sayyab Badr Shakir al Sayyab ( ar, بدر شاكر السياب) (December 24, 1926 in Jaykur, near Basra – December 24, 1964 in Kuwait) was a leading Iraqi poet, well known throughout the Arab world and one of the most influential Arab poets of all ti ...
: His Life and Poetry'' (1971; 6th ed. 2007) (in Arabic بدر شاكر السياب : حياته وشعره) * ''Modern Arab Poets, 1950–1975'' (1976) (an anthology in English translation) * ''Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought'' (1990) * ''A Window on Modernism: Studies in the Works of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra'' (2002) (in Arabic نافذة على الحداثة: دراسات في أدب جبرا إبراهيم جبرا ) * ''Homecoming to Jerusalem'' (1998) (a novel in Arabic عائد إلى القدس) * ''A Retired Gentleman and Other Stories'' (2007) (a short-story collection in English); republished as ''True Arab Love and Other Short Stories'' (2016); translated into French as ''Amours Arabes'' (2016) * ''Rocks and a Wisp of Soil'' (2005) (in Arabic صخر وحفنة من تراب : مقالات في النقد الأدبي ),(essays in literary criticism) * ''The Bells of Memory: A Palestinian Boyhood in Jerusalem'' (2014)( a memoir, covering years from 1929 to 1948); translated into French as ''Les Échos de la Mémoire: Une Enfance Palestinienne à Jérusalem''(2014).


As editor

* ''Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature'' (1980) * ''Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Literature'' (1997, with
Terri DeYoung Terri is an alternative spelling of Terry. It is a common feminine given name and is also a diminutive for Teresa. Notable people with the name include: *Terri Allard (born 1962), American country/folk singer/songwriter *Terri S. Armstrong, Am ...
) * ''Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur'an'' (2000) * ''The Miraculous Inimitability of the Holy Qur'an throughout History'' (2006) (in Arabic إعجاز القرآن الكريم عـبر التاريخ)


As translator

* ''Embers and Ashes: Memoirs of an Arab Intellectual'' by Hisham Sharabi * ''Flight Against Time'' a novel by
Emily Nasrallah Emily Daoud Nasrallah ( ar, إيميلي داود نصر الله) ('' née'' Abi Rached; 6 July 1931 – 13 March 2018) was a Lebanese writer and women's rights activist. She graduated from the Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese Ameri ...
* ''Fugitive Light'' a novel by
Mohammed Berrada Mohammed Berrada ( ar, محمد برادة), also transliterated Muhammad Baradah (born 1938 in Rabat) is a Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator writing in Arabic. He is considered one of Morocco's most important modern authors.Salim ...
* ''My Life'' an autobiography by Ahmad Amin * ''Princesses' Street: Baghdad Memories'' an autobiography by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra * ''The First Well: A Bethlehem Boyhood'' an autobiography by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (winner of the 1993 University of Arkansas Press Award for Translation from Arabic) * ''The Game of Forgetting'' a novel by
Mohammed Berrada Mohammed Berrada ( ar, محمد برادة), also transliterated Muhammad Baradah (born 1938 in Rabat) is a Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator writing in Arabic. He is considered one of Morocco's most important modern authors.Salim ...
* ''The Square Moon'' short stories by
Ghada Samman Ghadah Al-Samman ( ar, غادة السمّان; born 1942) is a Syrian writer, journalist and novelist born in Damascus in 1942 to a prominent and conservative Damascene family. Her father was Ahmed Al-Samman, a president of the Syrian Univers ...
(winner of the 1997 University of Arkansas Press Award) * ''The Unique Necklace'' a compendium of Arabic classics (Garnet Publishing, UK, vols. 1,2,3—2006,2009,2011) by 10th-century Andalusian writer
Ibn Abd Rabbih Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih () or Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn `Abd Rabbih) (860–940) was an arab writer and poet widely known as the author of '' Al-ʿIqd al-Farīd'' (''The Unique Necklace''). Biography He was born in Cordova, now in Spain ...
* ''The Caliph's Sister'', a novel by Jurji Zaidan * ''Three Treatises on the I`jaz of the Qur'an'', Qur'anic & literary studies by al-Rummani, al-Khattabi, & `Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani. * Numerous poems published in Salma Khadra Jayyusi's ''Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology'' (1987) and ''Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature'' (1992), and numerous poems and prose pieces in Banipal and elsewhere.


As translator from English to Arabic

* ''Wallace Stevens'' by
William York Tindall William York Tindall (1903–1981) was an American Joycean scholar with a long and distinguished teaching career at Columbia University. Several of Tindall's classic works of criticism, including ''A Reader's Guide to James Joyce'' and ''A Reade ...
, 1962 * ''Edith Wharton'' by Louis Auchincloss, 1962


See also

*
List of Arabic-English translators The following is a list of translators primarily translating literary works in the Arabic language into English editions that have been published in print. The leading prizes in this field of translation are the Banipal Prize and the Arkansas Arab ...


As journal editor

* ''The Muslim World'' (1970–1980) with
Willem Bijlefeld Willem () is a Dutch and West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic, and can be seen as the Dutch equivalent of the name William in English, ...
. * ''Al-'Arabiyya'', Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic (1977–1982)


Festschrifts

Two Festschrifts were published to honor Boullata: * ''Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature : Essays in Honor of Professor Issa J. Boullata'', edited by
Kamal Abdel-Malek Kamal may refer to: * Kamal (name), a male given name and surname with multiple origins * Kamal (navigation), a navigational instrument for measuring latitude * Kamal, Jhapa, a rural municipality in Nepal * Alfa Romeo Kamal, an SUV by Alfa Romeo * ...
and Wael Hallaq (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000) * ''Coming to Terms with the Qur’an: A Volume in Honor of Professor Issa Boullata, McGill University,'' edited by Khaleel Mohammed and
Andrew Rippin Andrew Lawrence Rippin, (16 May 1950 in London, England – 29 November 2016) was a Canadian Islamic studies scholar. Rippin was Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. M ...
(North Haledon, NJ: Islamic Publications International, 2008).


Awards

Issa J. Boullata was awarded the ''MESA Mentoring Award'' in Nov. 2004 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America in recognition of his excellent teaching and scholarly influence on generations of students.


As PhD and MA supervisor

Professor Boullata supervised 10 PhD dissertations and 38 MA theses in his higher education career in USA and Canada between 1968 and 2004, and some of them have been published and their authors now occupy respected positions in academic and government institutions.


As Arabic programming consultant

Since 2006, Boullata has been the Arabic programming consultant to Montreal's annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and helped it establish a yearly prize for an Arab author, sponsored by the
Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...
Authority for Culture and Heritage and called
Blue Metropolis Al-Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Prize Blue Metropolis (also known as Blue Met) is an international literary festival held annually in Montreal since 1999. Founded by Montreal writer Linda Leith, it is one of the world's first multilingual literary festival. In early 2011, Leith depart ...
. The prize is currently on hiatus.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boullata, Issa J. 1929 births 2019 deaths Hartford Seminary faculty McGill University faculty Palestinian scholars Writers from Jerusalem 21st-century Palestinian writers English–Arabic translators Palestinian translators Arabic–English translators 20th-century Palestinian writers Alumni of the University of London 20th-century translators