A Street in Cairo, into Russian

The cover of the book

By Ashraf Aboul-Yazid,
President, Asia Journalists Assoicaiation

CAIRO: Next month, Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, will host the signing ceremony of the poetic anthology “A Street in Cairo” by Ashraf Aboul-Yazid.

The anthology, translated by the Azerbaijani poet Eldar Akhadov into Russian, is published in the Silk Road Literature Series.

The book is a selection of several volumes written by the author over three decades with titles Maps of the Mirage (2013), The memory of butterflies (2005), On the passage of death (2001), The memory of the silence (2000), The shells (1996) and The whisper of the sea (1989).

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid is The Silk Road Literature Series, Editor-in-Chief, Asia Journalist Association, President, since 2016, member of the Egyptian Writers Union and CAJ’s Vice-President.

He is Man of Culture for the Year 2012, Tatarstan, 2014 Manhae Grand Prize in Literature laureate, The Republic of Korea, winner of the Arab Journalism Award in Culture, UAE, 2015, winner of Gold Medal in LIFFT Eurasian Literary Festival, Istanbul, 2021, and the medal of Esteemed Patron of Arts, Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), Ibadan 2022.

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid

Of his poetic maps of Mirage, Ashraf wrote: A Map of the City He Left:

The boy will return looking for the house

of his neighboring girl.

But he will only see

the dry roses in her balcony.

He will knock at the door,

with no answer but of the sleeping bat

that tells him of the heresy of death.

Despite of the shades

thrown by the concrete forests,

he shall search roads around the house.

The signs of love,

they once engraved in tree trunks,

might be still there.

Despair shall sleep in his eyes

on the abandoned thresholds,

as he was looking for the gates

leading him out of this labyrinth.

But he forgets the password of survival,

and becomes a statue

in a legend.

Some of Ashraf’s published translated poetry books  are: Una calleen el Cairo, (A street in Cairo), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2010., YaraliGÜvercinlerIrmaği, (Turkish), Artshop, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012., The memory of Butterflies , (Persian), Afraz, Tehran, 2013, The Memory of Silence, English, Poetrywala, Mumbai, 2016, (The Whisper of the Sea), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2018., A Street in Cairo (Sindhi), Dareen, Germany, 2020, and A Street in Cairo (German), Dareen, Germany, 2020

About the Book Translator

Eldar Akhadov

Eldar Akhadov  is a Russian poet, prose writer and literary researcher, co-chairman of the Literary Council of the Eurasian Peoples’ Assembly, honorary member of the Writers’ Union of Azerbaijan, member of the Russian branch of the international PEN club, the Writers’ Union of Russia and the South Russian Writers’ Union (Ukraine), the Russian Geographical Society and the Union of Mine Surveyors of Russia.

In 2003-2008, he was the first deputy chairman of the board of the Krasnoyarsk regional branch of the Union of Writers of Russia, from 2000 to 2010 he was the head of the regional literary association at the State Center for Folk Art and the Bylina regional literary studio for the blind and visually impaired. Since January 2020 – as part of the central office of the Writers’ Union of Russia. Author of 68 books of prose and poetry, among them are Pushkin’s Secrets, Russian Poetry’s Round the World Journey, I Love and Remember, In the Footsteps of Columbus, Magellan and Marco Polo, Vibrations of Life, Far North, Laureate of the State Literary Prize of the Governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (2017), winner of an individual grant from the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (2008), as well as the Silver Pen of Russia (2007), For the Benefit of the World (twice – 2012 and 2013), country without borders” (twice – 2017 and 2018). Silver medal of the IV All-Russian Literary Festival of Festivals (2019, Russia, Tyumen). Silver medal of the IV Eurasian Literary Festival of Festivals in the nomination “preserving national identity while creating works on a different language basis” (2019, Azerbaijan, Baku). Laureate of dozens of other awards and competitions, including in Germany (ZA-ZA verlag publishing house award, 2018), in Greece (Homer award, 2018), in Italy (Accademia Giulia Brignone award winner, second place in the Vincenzo Padula”, both – in 2020), winner of the “San Valentino di Atripalda” award (2022, Italy), Letter of thanks from the Writers’ Union of Russia (2022). Akhadov’s books were published in Russia, the USA, Mexico, Serbia and India in Russian, English, Spanish and Serbian, are available in the largest Russian libraries, in the US Library of Congress, in the British Library, in the libraries of Berlin and Munich, in the libraries of US universities, Germany, Spain and other countries.

Books, studies, articles and reviews in Russia and abroad have been written about Ahadov’s work – Richard Berengarten (Cambridge, UK), Ruben Dario Florez Arcila (Bogota, Colombia), Fahredin Shehu (Rahovec, Kosovo), Yordan Arroyo, (San Jose, Costa Rica, Dr. Milutin Djurickovic, (Belgrad, Serbia), Raffaele Piazza, (Napoli, Italy), Juan C. Tajes (Amsterdam, Netherlands / Uruguay), Alexander Karpenko (Moscow, Russia), Natalia Tsymbalistenko (Salekhard, Russia) and others.