São Paulo – Writer Alberto Mussa, one of the stars of new Brazilian literature, will have a book translated into Arabic for the first time. Novel "The Enigma of Qaf", published in Brazil in 2004, is about to be released in Egypt and should get to bookstores in the country later this year. The book is situated in Pre-Islamic Arabia, focussing on the routine of poets of the time, and it tells the story of one who is in love with a woman whose eyes are the only part he knows. To win her, the poet needs to decipher an enigma related to the Arabic alphabet.
Mussa is of Lebanese descent and one of his books, "Suspended Poems", is the translation of the poems of ten of the greatest poets of the Arabian Peninsula in the pre-Islmaic period. It was when he was dedicated to that work, in fact, between 1996 and 2004, that Mussa decided to write "The Enigma of Qaf", which takes time in the same place and is imbued in the context of the poems. Apart from the plot of the novel, the work brings the fictional biography of 13 pre-Islamic poets. The book has already received several awards, among them that of the 2004 São Paulo Association of Art Critics and Casa de Las Americas 2005.
"The Enigma of Qaf" is Mussa’s book that has been most translated and published abroad. The author believes that is due to the work’s trajectory in Brazil, where it was successful among critique and readers. In Egypt, the possibility of translation arose with the interest of Arab literary essay writer Wail Hassan. He works in the United States, but read Mussa’s work, got in contact with the writer and recommended him for translation at the National Translation Centre of Egypt, which should publish "The Enigma of Qaf".
Mussa is also the author of "Elegbara", "The Pendular Movement", " The Throne of Queen Jinga ", "My Destiny is to Be a Panther”, "Samba: history and art" and "The Lord of the Left Side”. He has already had works published in Argentina, Cuba, Portugal, Italy, France, England, Romania, Turkey and, in the near future, in Spain. The last book published by the author, who works for Record, was "The Lord of the Left Side”. The novel takes place in Rio de Janeiro, starting in 1913, when the secretary of the Presidency of the Republic is murdered in a luxury brothel.
The writer believes that "The Lord of the Left Side" should have good demand for translation, as it is a very Brazilian story. "There is in the world a lack of stories set in Brazil,” he said. Mussa’s work of art should also be "very Brazilian", as he plans to implement it in the first thirty years in Brazil, at the time of the pirates, prior to the hereditary captaincies. The objective is to focus the storyline on the myth of the Amazons, warrior women who lived without husbands.
*Translated by Mark Ament