Aviva Butt

International

Aviva Butt, who lives in Australia, is a writer and translator of literature from Arabic and Hebrew to English. She is also a screenwriter of original feature films on Middle Eastern subjects. Her field of interest is Literature as a branch of cultural studies, linguistics, and literary philosophy. She regularly publishes articles in the International Journal of Kurdish Studies (IJOKS), Editor: Dr Hasan Karacan. Her recent book Salim Barakat, Mahmud Darwish, and the Kurdish and Palestinian Similitude: Qamishli Extended published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (20 September 2021 / 2023) has an anthology of translated poems including Selected Poems by Salim Barakat and Selected Poems by Mahmud Darwish.
Her translation to English of Salim Barakat's narrative Sages of Darkness: A Depiction of Kurdish Life in Late Ottoman Times was published by Peter Lang on 25 September 2024.
A Review of her forthcoming book entitled The Tradition of the First Temple will appear in IJOKS (1) 2026. This book focuses on the Hebrew Bible and has up-to-date translations of the Book of Daniel, the Song of Songs, and the Book of Nahum. Relevant Qur'anic passages are mentioned. Dr Hasan Karacan is working on a translation to Turkish of her short Memoirs: Israel's Ghost and Me. She is currently working on a book entitled: Modern Israeli Poets and the Biblical Prophets. Her proposed research will include poets from the Jewish Socialist communities, as well as from the Druze and Muslim communities.