Osama Esber ( Syria ) poet, photographer, translator and editor
I first came into contact when I was guest editing Live Encounters Poetry & Writing for Mark Ulyseas. Osama submitted some poems for inclusion in the magazine and I was immediately struck by their power and beauty. Living in exile in California due to the ongoing war in the country of his birth, you could sense the deep pathos and loss coming from his work. Though no trace of bitterness. To be honest, I was amazed. A less forgiving writer would perhaps be irretrievably lost after experiencing what he went through. This is one of the reasons why you do what you do - CREATE. As it allows you the time, like the alchemists of old, to properly distill the raw content or matter of experience, in all of its particular manifestations, and from it to extract the poison necessary in order to get to the matter most pressing at hand. Baudelaire, as usual, probably says it best- Tu m’as donné ta boue
et j’en a fait de l’or.
Well, we got to talking and eventually Osama, after reading some of my poetry, asked me if he could translate some of my work. I was very happy, as Osama has translated some of the great writers of our times into Arabic from the English speaking world. He has translated works by Noam Chomsky, Michael Ondaaje and Raymond Carver to name just a few. To date my writing has been translated into French, Italian, German and now Arabic. For a writer, there is no greater possible honour to be translated into another language as your ideas and words will be introduced to a whole new set of readers for perhaps the very first time. Who knows what that kind of event could lead to? The possibilities of such encounters are simply unlimited. Call it the contagion of words which are viral, in the best meaning of the sense. Many thanks to you Osama, for starting off this little pandemic. 87 or so likes after only a day! That means 87 more people are reading me in the Middle East.
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