Salma Khadra Jayyusi

Biography

Salma Khadra Jayyusi was a Palestinian poet, scholar, anthologist, and translator who did more than almost any other single figure to bring Arabic literature to the English-speaking world. Born in 1925 to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother and raised in Acre and Jerusalem, she earned a doctorate in Arabic literature from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and taught at universities across the Arab world and the United States. In 1980 she founded the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), and later East-West Nexus, monumental undertakings that produced dozens of authoritative anthologies and translated volumes of Arabic poetry, fiction, and drama. Her anthologies, including "Modern Arabic Poetry," "The Literature of Modern Arabia," and the landmark "Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature," became standard reference works in universities worldwide and shaped the Western canon of Arabic letters. She was herself an accomplished poet, publishing collections that placed her among the modernist generation, but it was her vast editorial and scholarly enterprise that defined her legacy. Her edited volume "The Legacy of Muslim Spain" and her studies of Andalusian and Arab urban civilization extended her influence well beyond literature into cultural history. Working largely without institutional funding, she marshaled networks of translators and scholars to fill a profound gap in cross-cultural transmission, ensuring that Palestinian and Arab writers reached audiences who could not read the originals. For this lifelong labor she received numerous honors across the Arab world. Jayyusi's role as the great impresario of Arabic-to-English literary transmission, and her specific championing of Palestinian writing, make her an indispensable figure whose influence on the field's global reach is difficult to overstate.

Why This Person Matters

Through PROTA and her landmark anthologies she became the single most important conduit of Arabic and Palestinian literature into English, shaping the global academic canon.

Historical Context

Born in 1925 to a Palestinian father and Lebanese mother and raised in Acre and Jerusalem, Jayyusi belonged to the last generation to come of age in Mandate Palestine before the 1948 Nakba scattered its intelligentsia into exile. Educated in Beirut and then at SOAS in London, she lived the diaspora condition that turned so many displaced Palestinians into cultural ambassadors abroad. Founding PROTA in 1980, she worked through the decades when Arabic literature remained largely invisible to Western readers and when Palestinian writing in particular was marginalized in the global canon. Her monumental translation enterprise was a deliberate answer to the cultural erasure that accompanied political dispossession.

Historical Context

1. 1925 — Born in Salt, Jordan
2. 1948 — The Nakba – Palestinian catastrophe and mass displacement
3. 1967 — Six-Day War and occupation of West Bank and Gaza
4. 2023 — Passed away at age 98

Selected Works

• Modern Arabic Poetry: An Anthology — Her monumental 1987 anthology translated into English the full sweep of 20th-century Arabic poetry for the first time, making poets from Morocco to Iraq accessible to Western readers and scholarship.

Legacy & Influence

Jayyusi's legacy is as the single most important conduit of Arabic and Palestinian literature into English of her era. Her Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA) and later East-West Nexus produced dozens of authoritative anthologies and translated volumes, and her collections, including Modern Arabic Poetry and the Anthology of Modern Palestinian Literature, became standard reference works in universities worldwide, shaping the Western canon of Arabic letters. Her influence extended into cultural history through her edited volume The Legacy of Muslim Spain. Working largely without institutional funding, she marshaled networks of translators to ensure Palestinian and Arab writers reached readers who could not access the originals, earning numerous honors and remembrance as the great impresario of Arabic literary transmission.

Topics & Themes

• British Mandate
• Diaspora

References & Sources

1. Salma Khadra Jayyusi — Banipal — https://www.banipal.co.uk/contributors/97/salma-khadra-jayyusi/
2. Remembering Salma Khadra Jayyusi — https://arablit.org/2023/04/21/remembering-salma-khadra-jayyusi/