Official Review: Participations by Eng. Yasir I. Kashgari

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Mercelle
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Official Review: Participations by Eng. Yasir I. Kashgari

Post by Mercelle »

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Participations" by Eng. Yasir I. Kashgari.]
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3 out of 4 stars
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Participations by Eng. Yaser Ibrahim Kashgari is a motivational book inspired by the author's own life experiences. Written in beautiful and captivating poetry, it provides a comprehensive guide towards dealing with life's various challenges. For this reason, OBC should have classified it under under drama and poetry instead of other fiction.

Originally written in Arabic, it has been translated into both English and French. The PDF copy I received contained all three publications and because I enjoyed the English version, I wished I was fluent in the other two languages. Because I don't speak Arabic, I'm not sure about the accuracy of the translation. From what I read, I'll give the translator the benefit of doubt and hope that the true essence of the poems were captured.

The whole book (all three version put together) is 268 pages long so for whichever version one chooses to read, this is a quick read. It took me just under an hour to get through the English version. The verses are short and the most obvious writing style is free verse. This does a perfect job at capturing the author's positive thinking. I liked how descriptive and colorful the language is. There is a whole two pages describing the beauty, character and tenacity of women. I must been forgiven for not expecting this from an author of Saudi origin. Other themes tackled in the book are love, friendship, meaningful relationships and hard work. God also plays an important role towards shaping the author's beliefs and I was relieved that no particular religion is mentioned. This book could therefore appeal to anyone despite their religious beliefs.

The nuggets of wisdom sewn in between the lines are powerful and practical. There were more than a few verses that I could personally relate to. Throughout the poems, I encountered a few awkwardly worded sentences and the wrong word used. For instance, The word "person" is repeatedly used and in most cases, it didn't fit. The word "one" would have been a better fit in those cases. This is common with translated works but the message didn't fail to hit home. There were also grammatical errors throughout the book. These could easily be reconciled with a round of editing.

Participations is a book I would recommend to lovers of poetry, anyone who seeks inspiration and anyone who's fluent in either Arabic, English or French, not forgetting multilingual people who speak any combination of these languages. I therefore rate this book 3 out of 4 stars and I look forward to reading the second book in this series.

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Participations
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Kat Berg
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Post by Kat Berg »

Translations can be hard to get right, especially with poetry, but this sounds like it does a reasonable job. I really resonate with your wish to be able to read it in the original Arabic.
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Post by Manang Muyang »

How nice that the book has all three versions!

But nothing beats the original. I am sure something was lost in the translation. Languages have nuances that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate. But if 90% of the essence is retained, that's good enough; at least we get to enjoy writings that would otherwise have been inaccessible.

Cheers to translators! I'm sure their job is not as easy as ABC.
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Post by Mercelle »

Kat Berg wrote: 18 Jan 2018, 01:39 Translations can be hard to get right, especially with poetry, but this sounds like it does a reasonable job. I really resonate with your wish to be able to read it in the original Arabic.
Thank you. Since I never get to read any literature from that part of the world, I'm glad I stumbled upon this one.
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Post by Mercelle »

Miriam Molina wrote: 18 Jan 2018, 03:48 How nice that the book has all three versions!

But nothing beats the original. I am sure something was lost in the translation. Languages have nuances that are difficult, if not impossible, to translate. But if 90% of the essence is retained, that's good enough; at least we get to enjoy writings that would otherwise have been inaccessible.

Cheers to translators! I'm sure their job is not as easy as ABC.
I completely agree with you. In some cases, I couldn't quite get what the message no matter how hard I tried.
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Post by kandscreeley »

I can imagine that it would be difficult to translate poetry from one language to the other. It often loses something in the translation. I'm glad that this one didn't really seem to. However, poetry really isn't my thing. Thanks for the review, though!
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Post by Mercelle »

kandscreeley wrote: 18 Jan 2018, 08:20 I can imagine that it would be difficult to translate poetry from one language to the other. It often loses something in the translation. I'm glad that this one didn't really seem to. However, poetry really isn't my thing. Thanks for the review, though!
You're welcome. Thanks for stopping by.
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