New publications, skirmishes on translation endings and an imminent cover reveal!

Posted in Neem Tree Blog on September 13, 2019

This week we entered into a completely unexpected and very surprising last-minute skirmish about the ending of one of our translations. How much liberty can or should a translator take? In this case, unfortunately, the author is dead and we can’t ask him directly either. So, we are battling it out and wait to see if we’ve managed to persuade the parties concerned.

Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat, superbly translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp and Sue Copeland, is now out!  Dr Nora Parr, a research Fellow at SOAS, refers to it as ‘a most ordinary, magical, devastating story’ and compares it to the greats of magic realism ‘what Trees for the Absentees shares with works by authors like Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Louise Borges is that it finds a way within fiction to beautifully express what the ‘real’ somehow cannot.’

We are getting geared up for Frankfurt. It’s going to be the first time Neem Tree Press is exhibiting there, but we are under the auspices of the IPG so that should smooth things somewhat. We are very excited and hope it’ll be productive, particularly from a rights perspective.

We are also gearing up for the paperback publication for The Umbrella Men by Keith Carter on October 3rd. We are really looking forward to the Anne Cater blog tour that is lined up for the book.

We have finalized the book cover design for our first non-fiction book, Modesty: A Fashion Paradox by the fabulous Hafsa Lodi and will be revealing it very soon – watch this space.