Ashraf Aboul-Yazid (Egypt)

Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Egypt, March 13, 1963. Editor in Chief, THE SILK ROAD LITERATURE SERIES, Worked in Cultural Journalism for 30 years. Authored and translated 40 books. Man of Culture for the Year, 2012, Tatarstan, Russia. Manhae Prize in Literature, 2014, the Republic of Korea, Arab Journalism Award in Culture, in 2015, UAE, President, Asia Journalist Association since April 2016. Some of his books are translated into Korean, Turkish, Persian, English, Sindhi, Spanish and Malayalam.

Published Books authored & translated by Ashraf

Poetry | Arabic

1. Washwashat Al Bahr, (the Whisper of the Sea), Cairo, 1989.
2. Al Asdaf, (the Shells), Cairo, 1996.
3. Zakirat Al Samt, (the Memory of Silence), Beirut, 2000.
4. FawqaSirat Al Mawt , (On the Passage of Death), Cairo, 2001.
5. Zakirat Al Farashat, (the Memory of Butterflies), Cairo, 2005.

Poetry | Non-Arabic

• Una calleen el Cairo, (A street in Cairo), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2010.
• YaraliGÜvercinlerIrmaği, (Turkish), Artshop, Istanbul, Turkey, 2012.
• The memory of Butterflies , (Persian), Afraz, Tehran, 2013
• The Memory of Silence, English, Poetrywala, Mumbai, 2016
• (The Whisper of the Sea), (Spanish), Casa de Poesa – Editorial UCR, Costa Rica, 2018.
• A Street in Cairo (Sindhi), Dareen, Germany, 2020

Fiction | Arabic

1. Shamawes, (Novel), Cairo, 2008
2. HadiqaKhalfeyya (A Backyard Garden), (Novel), Cairo, 2011
3. (31), (Novel), Cairo, 2011
4. At-Turjoman (the Translator), Battana, Cairo, 2017

Fiction | Korean

1. Shamawes, (Novel), (Korean), Seoul, South Korea, 2008

Fiction | Malayalam

1. A Backyard Garden, (Novel), (Malayalam), Calicut, India, 2017

Fiction | Malayalam

1. A Backyard Garden, (Novel), (English), Dareen Novels, Germany, 2020

Travels & Other Books | Arabic

1. Sirat Al Lawn, (the Biography of the Color), Art Criticism, Cairo, 2003.
2. MuzakkratMusafer, (the Memories of a Traveler, Biography on Al-Sheikh Mustafa Abdul Razik travels to France), Abu Dhabi,UAE, 2004.
3. Al Shiekh Mustafa Abdul-Raziq,MusaferanwaMuqiman,((Al Azhar Sheikh Travels and Memories at home ), Travels, Cairo, 2006.
4. The Story of an Artist Who Lived 5000 Years, History of Art for Children, Cairo 2006.
5. The Arab World Kids, Poems for Children, Kuwait, 2006.
6. SiratMusafer (A Traveler tale), Travels, Cairo, 2008
7. Abath al Shabab (The Joy of the Youth), Bayrem Al-Tunsi papers in Tunisia, Alexandria Bibliotheca, 2008
8. The Arab Travelers (Rahhalatol Arab), for children, Kuwait, 2009
9. The Sea Post Fish, Poetic story for Children, Kuwait, 2011.
10. Non AnniswaNahrol-Fan, Feminine N, River of Art, Women Biographies, Dar Al-Hilal, Cairo 2013
11. The Silk Road (A Cultural Pictorial Encyclopedia)Alexandria Bibliotheca, 2013
12. A River on Travel, travel literature, Kuwait, 2015
13. QafilatHekayatMaghrebeyyah (A Moroccan Tale Caravan), UAE, 2017

Arabic Translations of texts originally written in English

• Korean Folk Tales, for Children, Al-Arabi Books, Kuwait, 2008
• I and Surrealism, Salvador Dali,(Biography), Dubai Thaqafeyya magazine, UAE, 2010
• One Thousand & One Lives, An Anthology of Selected Poems Written by the Korean Poet KoUn), Dubai, UAE, 2012
• Shurali (The Carpenter and the Evil of the Forest), a folk tale by the Tatar poet Abdullah Tukay, for Children, Kuwait, 2011
• The Sheep and the Goat , a folk tale by the Tatar poet Abdullah Tukay, for Children, Kuwait, 2013
• QeddisonYouhalleqoBaaidan (The Far-off Saint), Translated Poems Written by the Korean Poet and monk Cho O-hyun, BaitAl-Ghasham,  Muscat, Oman, 2013
• A Depressingly Monotonous Landscape, Hemant Divate, the Silk Road Literature Series, Cairo, 2016
• The Grace of Stem Cells, Dr. Jeung Chan Ra, Battana, Cairo, 2019
• Riding a Cloud Searching You, Korean poet Manhae’s Love poems, the Silk Road Literature Series, Cairo, 2019

Poems

A Street in Cairo

The man who returned home,

In his short break,

Does not have but two days:

A day for his arrival,

And a day for getting ready for departure.

A day to cry on seeing her,

And a day for her to cry on the farewell scene.

A day to open his arms for friends,

And a day for hugging their mirage.

A day to tell them about the war,

And a day for their tales of the war’s victims.

A day for life,

And a day for an eternal death.

The man who returned home,

In his short break, remembers:

When the war started,

They put targets on his eyes,

They closed his mouth with

the tank nozzle,

and how he died before smelling

the gunpowder.

The man who returned home,

In his short break,

Is welcomed by a street in Cairo,

And two sidewalks,

Where he poured in the distance between them

The sands of his exiled deserted body,

Counting the papers burned in

The lost wars,

Under the fire and light poles.

The man who returned home,

In his short break,

Is similar to this street where

The processions of sadness pass,

Leaving noting but pain.

A street in Cairo

Deserted for two thousands years,

Full of dried trees and people,

Filled with a mixture of mud and bones,

But it always looks like a river,

As life looks like death!

The man who returned home,

In his short break,

Is just a street in Cairo,

With balconies of despair,

With lost wars dancing inside him,

With feet sinking in blood and dead bodies,

Those killed ones that sleep in his heart

After finishing their roles in the news.

The man who returned home,

In his short break,

Is seeking a vision

In the hand spread between two cities,

With lines sketched by years,

Made of sands and winds.

The man who returned home,

In his short break, is asking:

“How many last wars will be enough?”

Rain

In the heavy rain

No one feels

A lonely drop.

Steps

I come back to the empty home…

And ring the doorbell

Just to remember

the echo of your steps.

A Prison

The dreaming prisoner

Is asking his unjust guard

“How would you know

You are not my prisoner?

Aren’t we separated by

The same bars?!”

A Train Crosses the Desert

These countries look like a train,

That pull the air-conditioned coffins as a long tail.

They look like a lady,

With a dusty breast burnt by the sun,

With a body painted by dried gardens.

A train that cries between every two stations,

Where pavements are made

Of mirage and illusion.

In its stomach we struggle,

Fighting our defeats,

To beautify our fake organs.

The dragons of estrangement

Are urinating in our bags,

On what was left from our frightened bodies.

We are insulting those countries,

And spitting in one thousand and one towels.

But,

We are not leaving the train,

Even if we were able to stop it.

The Fire

You set fire on my wings,

And asked me to fly!

I tried,

thinking that the wind would set

the fire off.

But I found my wings would be divided,

I realized that I would not be able,

Neither to fly, nor to stay!