ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF UYGHUR POETRY
Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."
Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
......
These are poems about the victims and survivors of great disasters and tragedies: the Holocaust, the Palestinian Nakba, the Trail of Tears, 9-11 ...
Survivors
by Michael R. Burch
(for the victims and survivors of 9/11 and their families)
In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
......
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF UYGHUR POETRY
Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Tursun has been described as a "self-professed Kafka character" and that comes through splendidly in poems of his like "Elegy." Unfortunately, Tursun was "disappeared" into a Chinese "reeducation" concentration camp where extreme psychological torture is the norm. According to a disturbing report he was later "hospitalized."
Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
"Your soul is the entire world."
— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
......
These are poems about the victims and survivors of great disasters and tragedies: the Holocaust, the Palestinian Nakba, the Trail of Tears, 9-11 ...
Survivors
by Michael R. Burch
(for the victims and survivors of 9/11 and their families)
In truth, we do not feel the horror
of the survivors,
......