Iraqi publisher seeks to connect Arab and Welsh cultures, assalamu alaikum
Assalamu alaikum - A Cardiff-based publisher hopes his Arabic translations of Welsh poetry will find readers in the Middle East and help build cultural bridges.
Ali Anwar, a retired computer engineer and former business owner from Baghdad, has been living in Wales since he moved there as a student in 1977. About 12 years ago he started the H’mm Foundation to introduce Welsh culture to Arabic readers and to encourage Arabic in Wales.
He worries that younger generations of Arabic-speaking families in Wales are losing their language and wants to share Wales - a place little known in much of the Arab world - with fellow Arabs.
“I want to create links between the two cultures. Welsh is an ancient language with deep roots. They are Celts, and it is the most developed of the Celtic tongues,” he said, adding that he’s proud of his own language and heritage.
His first project was translating Menna Elfyn’s Welsh poetry collection Caned Pobl Y Byd into Arabic. Because there were no direct Welsh-to-Arabic translators available, he first rendered the poems into English, then collaborated with a Syrian translator and an assistant from a US university translation centre to complete the Arabic edition.
He also translated The Seven Voyages of Sinbad into Welsh, drawing on images from Arabic manuscript collections of One Thousand and One Nights held in European libraries.
Mr Anwar says his work to “build bridges” feels all the more important as anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments have been rising in the UK and government policies on migration seem to confuse irregular migration with the many lawfully settled, hardworking families.
Now 68, he has recently closed down the IT company he founded in 1989 to focus more on publishing, hoping to use new technologies and AI to promote the books. He notes with concern that Arabic publishing has declined and that illiteracy is increasing in some areas. Among diaspora communities, he fears the language often fades by the second or third generation.
The name H’mm Foundation comes from his observation that poets often hum before they speak - he fondly recalls the late Welsh poet RS Thomas humming frequently. He also speaks warmly of Cardiff’s Arabic-speaking community, with roots in the port and connections to Yemen and Somalia.
Mr Anwar hopes to donate some copies to the National Library in Baghdad so Iraqis can learn about Wales, which he says has been the place he’s lived in for nearly half a century.
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