Issa J. Boullata
Encyclopedia
Issa J. Boullata is a Palestinian
Palestinian people
The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 scholar, writer, and translator of Arabic literature
Arabic literature
Arabic literature is the writing produced, both prose and poetry, by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is adab which is derived from a meaning of etiquette, and implies politeness, culture and enrichment....

. He was born in Jerusalem on 25 February 1929 during the British Mandate of Palestine. He obtained a First Class BA (Honours) in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1964 followed by a PhD in Arabic literature in 1969, both from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. He taught Arabic studies for seven years at Hartford Seminary
Hartford Seminary
Hartford Seminary is a theological college in Hartford, Connecticut, USA.-History:Seminaries in the city of Hartford date back to 1833. In 1913, the current Hartford Seminary came into existence through the combination of three Hartford-based schools affiliated with the city's Congregationalist...

 before moving to McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 in 1975. He taught Arabic Literature, Modern Arab Thought, and Qur'anic Studies at McGill's Institute of Islamic Studies until his retirement in 2004. He currently lives in Montreal.

Boullata is the author of several books on Arabic literature and poetry, and on the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

. He has also written numerous articles and book reviews for scholarly journals, as well as articles for several encyclopedias. He is a noted translator of Arabic literature and is a two-time winner of the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award
Arkansas Arabic Translation Award
The Arkansas Arabic Translation Award is a prize given for a notable English translation of a book-length literary work originally written in the Arabic language. The award is administered by the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas...

. He is a contributing editor of Banipal
Banipal
Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...

 magazine of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and his translations have appeared in several issues of the magazine.

Boullata's eldest son is Dr. Joseph I. Boullata, Associate Professor of Pharmacology
Pharmacology
Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...

 & Nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....

 at the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

; his middle son is David Boullata, professional radio announcer (pseudonym: David Tyler
David Tyler
David Tyler is a Canadian radio personality, voice over artist and lecturer on The Art of Communicating.Originally from Hartford, Connecticut he moved to Canada at the age of 10 with his family when his Father accepted a teaching job at McGill University...

) in Montreal, communications lecturer, and writer; and his youngest son is the Reverend Peter Boullata of the Unitarian Universalist First Parish Church in Lexington
Lexington
-Places:In the United States:*Lexington, Kentucky, the largest 'Lexington'*Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldest 'Lexington'** Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War*Lexington, Alabama*Lexington, Georgia...

, Massachusetts, USA.
Kamal Boullata
Kamal Boullata
Kamal Boullata is a Palestinian artist and art historian. His works are primarily done in acrylic and abstract in style focusing on the ideas of division in Palestinian identity, separation from homeland through utilization geometric forms as well as integration of Arabic words and...

, the well-known painter, art historian, and literary writer is his brother and lives in Menton, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

As author

  • Outlines of Romanticism
    Romanticism
    Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

     in Modern Arabic Poetry
    Modern Arabic Poetry
    By definition, Arabic poetry is poetry written in formal Arabic and follows one of the 16 rhymes . The structure follows an internal or/and external technique...

    (1960) (in Arabic الرومنطيقية ومعالمها في الشعر العربي الحديث)
  • Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
    Badr Shakir al-Sayyab
    Badr Shakir al Sayyab is an Iraqi and Arab poet, born in Jekor, a town south of Basra in Iraq. The eldest child of a date grower and shepherd. He graduated from the Higher teachers training college of Baghdad in 1948...

    : His Life and Poetry
    (1971; 6th ed. 2007) (in Arabic بدر شاكر السياب : حياته وشعره)
  • Modern Arab Poets, 1950-1975 (1976) (an anthology in English translation)
  • Trends and Issues in Contemporary Arab Thought (1990)
  • A Window on Modernism
    Modernism
    Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

    : Studies in the Works of Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was a Palestinian author of Syriac-Orthodox origin born in Bethlehem at the time of the British Mandate...

    (2002) (in Arabic نافذة على الحداثة: دراسات في أدب جبرا إبراهيم جبرا )
  • Homecoming to Jerusalem (1998) (a novel in Arabic عائد إلى القدس)
  • A Retired Gentleman and Other Stories (2007) (a short story collection in English)
  • Rocks and a Wisp of Soil (2005) (in Arabic صخر وحفنة من تراب : مقالات في النقد الأدبي ),(essays in literary criticism)

As editor

  • Critical Perspectives on Modern Arabic Literature (1980)
  • Tradition
    Tradition
    A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...

     and Modernity
    Modernity
    Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...

     in Arabic Literature
    (1997, with Terri DeYoung)
  • Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur'an
    Qur'an
    The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...

    (2000)
  • The Miraculous Inimitability of the Holy Qur'an through History (2006) (in Arabic إعجاز الفرآن الكريم عـبر التاريخ)

As translator

  • Embers and Ashes: Memoirs of an Arab Intellectual by Hisham Sharabi
    Hisham Sharabi
    Hisham Sharabi was Professor Emeritus of History and Umar al-Mukhtar Chair of Arab Culture at Georgetown University, where he was a specialist in European intellectual history and social thought...

  • Flight Against Time a novel by Emily Nasrallah
    Emily Nasrallah
    Emily Nasrallah , née Emily Abi Rached on July 6, 1931 in Kfeir, Lebanon; is a Lebanese writer and women's rights activist. Emily showed literary talents at an early age, she took up writing and journalism while still in college a talent for which she would receive great recognition...

  • Fugitive Light a novel by Mohammed Berrada
    Mohammed Berrada
    Mohammed Berrada , also transliterated Muhammad Baradah, is a Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator writing in Arabic. He is considered one of Morocco's most important modern authors....

  • My Life an autobiography by Ahmad Amin
  • Princesses' Street: Baghdad
    Baghdad
    Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

     Memories
    an autobiography by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was a Palestinian author of Syriac-Orthodox origin born in Bethlehem at the time of the British Mandate...

  • The First Well: A Bethlehem
    Bethlehem
    Bethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...

     Boyhood
    an autobiography by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
    Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was a Palestinian author of Syriac-Orthodox origin born in Bethlehem at the time of the British Mandate...

     (winner of the 1993 University of Arkansas Press Award for Translation from Arabic)
  • The Game of Forgetting a novel by Mohammed Berrada
    Mohammed Berrada
    Mohammed Berrada , also transliterated Muhammad Baradah, is a Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator writing in Arabic. He is considered one of Morocco's most important modern authors....

  • The Square Moon short stories by Ghada Samman (winner of the 1997 University of Arkansas
    University of Arkansas
    The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in...

     Press Award)
  • The Unique Necklace a compendium of Arabic classics (Garnet Publishing, UK, vols. 1,2,3--2006,2009,2011) by 10th-century Andalusian
    Andalusian
    The adjective Andalusian can refer to:*Andalusia, a region in Spain*Al-Andalus, a historical state on the Iberian Peninsula*Andalusian people, an ethnic group or nation in Spain centered in the Andalusia region...

     writer Ibn Abd Rabbih
    Ibn Abd Rabbih
    Ibn `Abd Rabbih or Ibn `Abd Rabbihi was a Moorish writer and poet. He was born in Cordova, now in Spain, and descended from a freed slave of Hisham I, the second Spanish Umayyad emir. He enjoyed a great reputation for learning and eloquence. Not much is known about his life...

  • Numerous poems published in Salma Khadra Jayyusi's Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology (1987) and Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature (1992), and numerous poems and prose pieces in Banipal
    Banipal
    Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...

     and elsewhere.

As translator from English to Arabic

  • Wallace Stevens by William York Tindall, 1962
  • Edith Wharton by Louis Auchincloss
    Louis Auchincloss
    Louis Stanton Auchincloss was an American lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known as a prolific novelist who parlayed his firsthand knowledge into dozens of finely wrought books exploring the private lives of America's East Coast patrician class...

    , 1962

As journal editor

  • The Muslim World (1970–1980) with Willem Bijlefeld.
  • Al-`Arabiyya, Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic (1977–1982)

Festschrifts

Two Festschrifts were published to honor Boullata:
  • Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity
    Postmodernity
    Postmodernity is generally used to describe the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity...

     in Arabic Literature : Essays in Honor of Professor Issa J. Boullata
    , edited by Kamal Abdel-Malek and Wael Hallaq
    Wael Hallaq
    Wael B. Hallaq is currently the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and is currently acting as the Director of Graduate Studies at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies. After a Ph.D...

     (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000)
  • Coming to Terms with the Qur’an: A Volume in Honor of Professor Issa Boullata, McGill University, edited by Khaleel Mohammed
    Khaleel Mohammed
    Khaleel Mohammed is associate professor of Religion at San Diego State University , in San Diego, California, and a core faculty member of SDSU's .- Specialties and research interests :...

     and Andrew Rippin
    Andrew Rippin
    Andrew Lawrence Rippin is a Canadian scholar of Islam.Rippin is Professor of History and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada...

     (North Haledon, NJ: Islamic Publications International, 2008).

Awards

Issa J. Boullata was awarded the MESA Mentoring Award in Nov. 2004 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America
Middle East Studies Association of North America
Middle East Studies Association of North America is a learned society, and according to its website, "a non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples...

 in recognition of his excellent teaching and scholarly influence on generations of students.

As PhD & MA supervisor

Professor Boullata supervised 10 PhD dissertations and 38 MA theses in his higher education career in USA and Canada between 1968 and 2004, and some of them have been published and their authors now occupy respected positions in academic and government institutions.

As Arabic programming consultant

Since 2006, Boullata has been the Arabic Programming Consultant to Montreal's annual Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival and helped it establish a yearly prize for an Arab author, sponsored by the Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...

 Authority for Culture and Heritage and called Blue Metropolis Al-Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Prize.
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