Azerbaijan International

Summer 2004 (12.1)






Contributors


Betty Blair, Editor


Pirouz Khanlou, Publisher


Arzu Aghayeva, Baku Manager


Aynura Huseinova, Editorial Assistant


Aytan Aliyeva, Editorial Assistant


Gulnar Aydamirova, Editorial Assistant


Ulviyya Mammadova, Editorial Assistant


 Sakina Isgandarova, Editorial Assistant


Narges Abadi, Editorial Assistant


Doug Davis, Graphic Designer

About the Contributors

We're very proud to publish this issue-"Passionate Pens in Pursuit of Truth: Azerbaijani Literature." It's the largest issue we have ever produced in the 12-year history of Azerbaijan International magazine. We've deliberately published this volume in black and white print so that we could produce a larger issue and include more authors.

This is the third time in the history of our magazine that we have focused our attention on Azerbaijani literature. Earlier issues include: "Contemporary Literature" (Spring 1996, (AI 4.1) and "Century of Reversals: A Literary Perspective" (Spring 1999 (AI 7.1). [See AZER.com to read them or you can order back issues at AZER.com, AI Store].

Together these three issues comprise nearly 130 solid pages of literature-the largest compilation in English that exists of Azerbaijani literature in translation since the country gained its independence in late 1991.

It has taken an enormous team effort to prepare this volume, not only on the part of the staff of Azerbaijan International, but by many members in Azerbaijan's literary community - both writers and critics.

Actually, publishing literary translations is quite a long involved process. First, we had to identify what we considered to be the best works for Western readers. This often meant that we read four or five times the amount of literature that we actually translated and published. Then there were the countless meetings with authors to seek their advice and clarify meaning. The actual translation and proofreading process was carried out by our staff members Arzu Aghayeva, Aytan Aliyeva, Gulnar Aydamirova and Ulviyya Mammadova.

Aynura Huseinova was brave enough to tackle much of the poetry as well. Needless to say in our first literary issue back in 1994, there weren't as many young people fluent in English as there are these days. In addition, we have drawn upon the translations from past years by Jala Garibova, Aynur Hajiyeva, Vafa Mastanova, and Vafa Talishly. Finally comes the actual editing process, designing and printing.

Since many of these works were available only in the Cyrillic script of Azeri language, we've gone one step further to make them available in Azeri Latin. You'll find them on our Web site at AZERI.org. Kudos to Sakina Isgandarova for typing hundreds of pages in Azeri Latin and to Ulviyya Mammadova for proofreading and designing the pages for the Web.









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