Forthcoming August 2026: Plays by Mahfouz, Fiction from Palestine
Two notable Arabic books are coming in English translation this month: a collection of one-act plays by Naguib Mahfouz and a novel by Sara Abu Ghazal.
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Posts by Marcia Lynx Qualey:
On the New Platform, ‘Palestine is Everywhere’
Editors of the anthology Palestine is Everywhere — Skye Arundhati Thomas, Edwin Nasr, and Gloria Habsburg — recently launched a new “Palestine is Everywhere” platform to host a series of monthly commissions, “creating an ongoing space to support and amplify the work of artists, writers, and practitioners from Palestine and the wider region.”
Short Fiction from Syria: ‘The Blacklist’
Haseeb Al-Zainy’s “The Blacklist” appears in the new anthology The Book of Damascus: A City in Short Fiction, out this month from Comma Press.
PEN Translates’ Latest Winners
Earlier this week, English PEN announced the latest winners of their flagship grant program, the “PEN Translates” award.
On the Choice to Write in Colloquial Arabic
“Some classical poets feel that the popularity of colloquial writers has nothing to do with the quality of their work, but rather because they have chosen the easier path.”
New Poetry in Translation: Sayed Abolela’s ‘Cinema’
This poem is from a forthcoming collection, مصمم معارك, to be published by the General Egyptian Book Organization.
New on Bulaq: Episode 120
Listen to episode 120 of the BULAQ podcast, with a focus on literatures of the Maghreb and Mashreq.
Classic Short Fiction: ‘A Criminal Against His Will’
“It was five o’clock in the morning. The station, faintly illuminated by dim lamps, lay beneath a murky canopy of locomotive smoke. Qasim stood beside the steps of one of the coaches, gazing at the station clock.”
In Memory: ‘Oh Stones Cloaked in Grief’
In memory of the July 2025 massacres in Sweida, Syria.