Middle East Center Translation Contest 2015
The 2015 Penn Middle East Center Translation Contest focused on the translation of contemporary Persian Texts from the 20th and 21st Centuries. The translations had to be at least one full page of either prose or poetry and were judged on their accuracy, style and grammar.
This year, the Middle East Center is proud to announce Yasaman Givi as the winner of the Translation Contest. Her fantastic translation of Sohrab Sepehri’s Poem “Roshani, Man, Gol, Ab —Light, Myself, Flower, Water” was extremely well done. Sepehri practiced “New Poetry” meaning poetry that has neither meter nor rhyme. Born in 1928 and dying in 1980, Sepehri is a true poet of the 20th century. Givi herself is a third year law student at Penn.
This is the first year of the Middle East Center Translation Contest. The award will focus on a different language from the Middle East each year. Next year’s contest will feature either Arabic, Hebrew or Turkish.