Arash Zeini

Category: Blog

  • ‘Aliss at the Fire’

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    Arash Zeini
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    In November 2023, shortly after Jon Fosse had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, I read A Shining, a 48-page story. I expected a contemplative experience, but found the repetitive language lifeless and without character. It tested my patience, and the religiosity on display felt crude, irrelevant and simplistic. The 48 pages turned out…

  • Book Pahlavi typeface

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    Arash Zeini
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    Amir Mahdi Moslehi speaks to Khatt Chronicles about designing Iranian typefaces, including a font for Middle Persian, on which I had the pleasure of advising him. If you listen to the conversation, I am happy to announce that we seem to be really close to an encoding of Pahlavi in Unicode, mostly due to the…

  • Past Imperfect 9.12.24

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    Arash Zeini
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    Lovely to find out about ‘Stolen Fragments’ by Roberta Mazza, and that Emily Wilson now has a substack. In its first post, Wilson examines four translations of the Odyssey’s opening. Years ago, I read a Guardian article doing something similar and found Wilson’s translation the most convincing.

  • ‘Prophet Song’

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    Arash Zeini
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    I must mention ‘Prophet Song’ once more. Paul Lynch constructs a dark, threatening world that gradually builds to a crescendo of unbearable bleakness. Having lived as a child of revolution, war, and migration, I find his beautiful writing captures a pain that feels deeply relatable. This one left me speechless.

  • A nasty bird

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    Arash Zeini
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    I used to think that the politics of a certain site’s owner didn’t matter. I have changed my mind. Would you join that other man’s Truth Social? I wouldn’t. So, why stay here? Since I don’t know the answer, I decided to delete my bird profile in due course. Where I will be? I don’t…

  • Yoko Tawada and Paul Celan

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    Arash Zeini
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    Susan Bernofsky’s (@translationista) biography of Robert Walser, ‘Clairvoyant of the Small’, is a true masterpiece. She has also translated Yoko Tawada’s Celan-based novel into English: ‘Paul Celan und der chinesische Engel’. Listen to her talk about her work.

  • Beauty of languages

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    Arash Zeini
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    I suggest German, not necessarily as a language of poetry, although it does well there too, but as a language of extraordinarily poetic prose. Yes. Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin are two general favourites, of course, and here a couple of epigraphs from Benjamin’s writings: Bedenkt das Dunkel und die große KälteIn diesem Tale, das von…

  • Intergenerational Trauma

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    Arash Zeini
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    ‘It dramatises – literally – the psychic violence and intergenerational trauma that can be wreaked upon a people’. Claire Kilroy on a fundamental truth of life and ‘Beloved’ by the brilliant Toni Morrison, via @GuardianBooks: Claire Kilroy: ‘My moral compass has turned 180 degrees on Lolita’

  • Mohsen Zakeri (1954-2024)

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    Arash Zeini
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    آخرین بار در بوخوم دیدمش. با اینکه ناخوش بود، لطف کرد و اومد برای سخنرانی‌ام. بعدش هم برای پروژه کتاب بعدیش پیشنهاد همکاری داد. حیف که دیگر فرصت گفت‌وگویی نخواهیم داشت. دانشمند قهاری بود و دانش زیادی داشت که خیلی زود با خودش برد. جایش خالی خواهد بود.

  • Dr Karen Bakker

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    Arash Zeini
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    There’s so much in this short video that relates to my work and interests. Hopefully soon.

  • A Dream of White Horses

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    Arash Zeini
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    Don’t know much about this one. Quoting for the poetic title, the gorgeous cover, and the steady hand of Bluemoose Books when it comes to publishing great books.

  • گیلاس و انجیر

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    Arash Zeini
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    دو هفته پیش پسر همسایه اجازه گرفت و چند تا گیلاس از درخت ما چید. امروز برام گوجه آورد که از پارک کنده بود.‌ قرار شد وقتی انجیرهای درخت ما رسیدند دوباره با نردبونش برگرده.

  • Stray Dog

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    Arash Zeini
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    I love dogs and often meditate on this photo. Something in those eyes, in the captured moment that seems so human. This one is the embodiment of the rōnin, but not because this is a Japanese stray. It’s in the eyes, in that gaze. It encapsulates survival, suffering, pain, courage and compassion all at the…

  • Sasanian inscriptions

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    Arash Zeini
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    I thoroughly enjoyed working with Olivia this term. She is a brilliant scholar, and I very much look forward to her book. The opportunity to discuss Ab’s ideas was an unexpected and very welcome side effect. Good luck to you all.

  • Im Dickicht der Zeichen

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    Arash Zeini
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    Mir scheint es, die Zeiten haben sich geändert. In ihrem Buch, ‘Im Dickicht der Zeichen’, beschreibt Aleida Assmann ihr Studium in den 60er Jahren: 1966 war das Jahr, in dem ich Abitur gemacht habe und mein Studium begann. Die Studienjahre in Heidelberg und Tübingen fielen in die bewegte Zeit der K-Gruppen und Vollversammlungen, der Marx-Lektüre…