Aziz Nazmi Shakir

Aziz Nazmi ShakirName and sur­name: Aziz Nazmi Shakir, Aziz Tash (pseud­onym)

Work­ing lan­guages: Arab­ic, Turk­ish, Otto­man, Bul­gari­an, Eng­lish

Field of work: Poetry and fic­tion trans­la­tions

Short bio­graphy: Aziz Nazmi Shakir was born Dec. 7th, 1973 in the town of Smo­ly­an (South Bul­garia), where he fin­ished “Ivan Vazov” High School of For­eign Lan­guages. Sub­sequently (1992–1997) he gradu­ated Arab­ic and Turk­ish Lan­guage and Lit­er­at­ure at Sofia Uni­ver­sity “St. Kli­ment Ohrid­ski”. In 1999–2004, he did a PhD in His­tory of Sci­ences at Istan­bul Uni­ver­sity. Since 2001, A. Shakir is an Arab­ic lan­guage instruct­or at the Fac­ulty of Arts and Social Sci­ences of Sabanci Uni­ver­sity (Istan­bul). An accom­plished trans­lat­or and edit­or with more than a dozen trans­la­tions of poetry and prose to his cred­it, he pub­lishes both in Bul­garia and in Tur­key.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

  • 1999 “Насрещен вятър / İki Yön­lü Rüzgâr”, Kemal Özer, poetry (trans­la­tion from Turk­ish into Bul­gari­an), Orph­eus Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia;
  • 1999 “Antho­logy of the Mod­ern Palestini­an Poetry” (trans­la­tion from Arab­ic into Bul­gari­an with Maya Tzen­ova), Bul­gari­an Writer Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia;
  • 2003 “Osmanlı’da Bir Papaz: Günahkâr Sofroni’nin Çileli Hay­at Hikayesi 1739–1813” (One Otto­man Priest: Life and Suf­fer­ings of the Sin­ful Sofroni­us – trans­la­tion from Old-Bulgarian into Turk­ish), Kitap Pub­lish­ing House, Istan­bul;
  • 2006 “Bul­gar­lara ve Biz­ansa Dair Bir Kitap” (A Book about Byz­an­ti­um and the Bul­gari­ans), Petar Mutafchiev (trans­la­tion from Bul­gari­an into Turk­ish), Janet 45 Pub­lish­ing House, Plov­div, Bul­garia;
  • 2009 “След тебе няма “след”” (There Is No ‘After’ after You), Mah­moud Dar­wish, Poetry (trans­la­tion from Arab­ic into Bul­gari­an with Maya Tzen­ova), Bul­gari­an Writer Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia;
  • 2010 В безмълвието на живота (Hay­atın Sessizliğinde/In the Silence of Life), Aslı Erdogan, poet­ic­al prose (trans­la­tion from Turk­ish into Bul­gari­an), Para­dox Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia;
  • 2013 Седмица на милосърдието в Истанбул (İstanbul’da Bir Mer­hamet Haftası/ A Week of Kind­ness in Istan­bul), Mur­at Gülsoy, nov­el (trans­la­tion from Turk­ish into Bul­gari­an) Para­dox Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia;

Awards:

2001: Grant of the European Cul­tur­al Found­a­tion – Ams­ter­dam, with­in the pro­gram for trans­la­tions from Balkan to Balkan lan­guages ​​“In Trans­itum” for the pro­ject “Antho­logy of the Mod­ern Turk­ish Poetry”;

2007: Grant of the Bur­eau of Edu­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al Affairs at the US Depart­ment of State for par­ti­cip­a­tion in the Inter­na­tion­al Writ­ing Pro­gram (IWP) at Iowa Uni­ver­sity;

Con­tact:

E‑mail: azizshakir@yahoo.com;

Mobile: 00359 889700287; 0090 5435203315;