Writing from East to West: Conversations with Arabic Language Writing from Palestine with Eman Alhaj Ali
Info
Date: July 11, 2026
Time: 11.00am - 1.00pm
Duration: 2 hours
Level: Advanced | Intermediate | Beginner |
Cost: €50 (€45 Members)
This session will take place in-person at the Irish Writers Centre on Saturday 11 July, 2026 (one session in total).
No Arabic required but welcome
In order to ensure this workshop is open to all, including as many diverse backgrounds as possible, we will have limited places reserved at a subsidised price. Please email us at booking@irishwriterscentre.ie to apply by outlining your situation, and we will award these places based on individual circumstances.
Course Summary
In this workshop we will be reading Arabic language poetry from Palestine in both Arabic and English. We will look in depth at the ways in which words have been translated: what is lost and found in the movement from Arabic to English.
This workshop will be faciliated by Eman Alhaj Ali in association with Fíona Bolger of Dubeloving who will introduce the event.
Course Overview
Eman will guide participants through line by line translations focusing on specific words and constructions which are ‘untranslatable’ or present a number of options.
The final exercise will be rendering in poetry a stanza using the original Arabic, a word by word translation and a bridge translation.
No Arabic required, but welcome.
Course Outcome
By the end of the workshop participants will have considered a number of issues in the poems’ translations and have begun to translate a poem themselves.
Eman Alhaj Ali is a Palestinian freelance journalist, writer, translator, and storyteller who was forced to evacuate Gaza in April 2025. She is currently a researcher based in Ireland doing her Masters in Philosophy of Applied Linguistics. Her writings have appeared on a variety of international and local websites, such as the Irish Examiner, New Arab, the Electronic Intifada, Al Jazeera English, the Nation, Mondoweiss, the Middle East Eye, the National, the University Times, and many others. She is an author of the zine: The Mirror of Memory: What Remains and What Must Be Remembered. She is a member of We Are Not Numbers, and contributed to a variety of books and anthologies, such as “We Were Seeds” and “We Are Not Numbers”. Writing and reading are her passions
Fióna Bolger is a poet and creative facilitator. She has worked in Ireland, India and the US with new and more experienced writers, offering spaces to experiment and build confidence. Her facilitation and creative practice focus on plurilingualism, using all the words in your head. Her practice is rooted in a trauma informed, anti-racist pedagogy. She has received awards from the Arts Council and residencies from Salmon Poetry. She has published in India, Ireland and US. Her chapbook, Reconstituting Myself was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, 2025. She has co-edited KIN: An anthology of Romani, Traveller and Nomadic Writers (Salmon Poetry, 2024). She co-facilitates Dubylon and has co-edited both Dubylon, the book and broadsheet. (https://www.ilsschool.org/dubylon.html).
