The Latest

“He stood bewildered at the crossroads, not knowing which way to take.” Classic short fiction about Arabs in early twentieth century Paris by Fouad Elshayeb.

It’s publication day for Mohammed Alyahyai’s The War, in Christiaan James’s translation. In this opening passage, Issa Saleh prepares for an evening gathering—only to find that something, or someone, has slipped out of reach.

At this point in ‘The Country Doctor’s Tale,’ the titular country doctor is returning from a house call when he suddenly discovers political posters everywhere, even on the walls of the clinic.

“Alone / on a balcony with no air / I suffocate, grow intoxicated / Coffee cups multiply / stained with lipstick, overflowing with disappointment / taking me to a fresh bout of insomnia / and thoughts, buried before they could ever see the light.”

“The city wakes up in obituaries.”

In this conversation with acclaimed Egyptian novelist Mohamed Mansi Qandil, we discuss his latest novel to reach English, The Country Doctor’s Tale, the relationship between doctoring and writing, the novels that shaped him, and why he’d like to see The Country Doctor’s Tale as a film or TV series.

Marilyn Booth reflects on her experience translating Zahran Alqasmi’s work and provides insight on greater questions of translation.

The”Translating Oman” event, hosted by Syracuse University Press, featured a discussion about Omani literature and translation.

Your love has taught me… how to be sad.
And I have needed, for ages
A woman to make me sad
A woman in whose arms I could weep
Like a sparrow,

“My book really is an examination of how he participated in the coup ,and how he believed fundamentally that the Free Officers were going to install democracy, and—once he realized that they were actually installing military dictatorship—the way he dissented, in the editorials and in person, the way that he was jailed, and the way he turned to fiction to express his dissent directly to Nasser.”