Translating from the Arabic: Iman Humaydan (author) & Michelle Hartman (translator) in conversation with Luke Leafgren

Songs for Darkness

Date and Time

April 23, 2026
03:00PM - 04:30PM EDT

Location

CGIS South, Rm S354

The Mahindra Rethinking Translation Seminar presents a conversation with

Iman Humaydan, author, and Michele Hartman, translator, of Songs for Darkness, an epic novel that intertwines a narration focused on four generations of Lebanese women’s lives with the major historical and political events of the twentieth century from the eve of World War I to the 1982 Lebanon War. 

Iman Humaydan is a Lebanese novelist and the president of the Lebanese chapter of PEN. 

Michelle Hartman is a literary translator and professor of Arabic literature at McGill University. 

Luke Leafgren is an Assistant Dean at Harvard College and a translator of several Arabic novels into English. 

Event funded by the Mahindra Re-thinking Translation Seminar and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.

Contact: snaddaff@fas.harvard.edu