In others, the narrator is the child-figure, or, in the case of the wonderfully satiric "Like a Domestic Animal," a house pet: "My demands are basic: / some patting over my head/ and clemency for my horrible daily deeds."
Two Poems and a Story to Remember Shaimaa al-Sabbagh
Samatar's story, which plays with a story from the Arabic Tales of the Marvelous and News of the Strange, also pays tribute to al-Sabbagh, "the poet who wrote of the streets."
On International Literature and Travel
When invited to write this essay, I wish I had taken the opportunity to tell you why you should read Petra.
Poems and Ancestors: Huda Fakhreddine Translates Jawdat Fakhreddine
"I told my wife, now that we have reached sixty together -- / with myself a bit ahead of her,/ we will be living from now on/ the most wonderful decade of our lives . . ."
Produce, Consume, Conserve: A Symposium on Egyptian Popular Culture
The first of the papers, Egypt’s Podcasts and Booktubes: A Literary Criticism of the Future? is up at Maydan, with suggestions for your literary podcast and booktube pleasure.
Sunday Submissions: Warwick Translates 2020
Also: Attendees can choose to work in one language or to split their time between two languages by attending morning workshops in one language and afternoon workshops in the other.
5 Poems by Qassim Haddad, Winner of Cairo Prize for Arabic Poetry
"So Qays—thanks to his madness—became free not only from the power of the sultan and the tribe, but also—and especially—from the boundaries imposed on him by the transmitters of his story. We still find him stepping out and escaping, over and over."
Friday Finds: Language and Craft in the ‘Thousand and One Nights’
The talk, titled "Her Own Devices: Language and Craft in the Thousand and One Nights," is introduced by Marina Warner.
4 of NEA’s Literature Translation Fellowships to Arabic Projects
Each of the 24 Literature Translation fellows are set to receive $12,500 each, for a total of $300,000. The fellowships will support the English translation of works from 19 countries; most are to translate works of award-winning and bestselling authors.
The Intersections of Poetry and Politics in Saudi Arabia
At a majliss in Saudi Arabia, for example, some Saudis complained that an unwillingness to embrace the art form in the past meant that a “Saudi art form” had effectively been monopolized by the United Arab Emirates.
World Editions to Publish Samar Yazbek’s ‘Blue Pen’ in 2021
The book is scheduled for English publication in Fall 2021.
Walid Taher: ‘When I Write, I Consider Everyone a Child’
"Speaking of translation, I once went alone to a workshop in Montreuil without a translator, and so I used Google Translate to pull sentences together and I sketched with the kids and it went quite well for about two hours."
