Nada Faris on Why She Stopped Avoiding Translation & Bringing Bothayna Al-Essa’s ‘Lost in Mecca’ into English
” I often avoided translation events because of the ways in which propaganda often slipped into discussions. Even the most liberal and well-meaning teachers were guilty of claiming that the Arabic language is more beautiful and more complex than all other languages and that Arabic poetry is incomparable and thus untranslatable.”Continue Reading
Summer Reads: 12 Arab Authors Recommend
The twelve authors from nine countries who recommended books for our list of 2023 summer reads had different ideas about what you need in a summer book.Continue Reading
Sunday Submissions: Palestinian Speculative Fiction Anthology
Roseway, an imprint of Fernwood Publishing, will be publishing Thyme Travelers, an anthology of speculative fiction by Palestinian writers edited by Sonia Sulaiman.Continue Reading
Lit & Found: Hosam Aboul-Ela, Mona Kareem, and ‘Exportability & Context: Reading Arabic Literature in the West’
“It doesn’t feel like an Arabic novel any more to me, now that it’s translated,” Hosam Aboul-ela said. “it feels like a really unique novel of Marxist international revolution.”Continue Reading
From Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi’s ‘A Friend’s Kitchen’
Next month, Poetry Translation Centre is releasing a collection of poetry by Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi, A Friend’s Kitchen, translated by Bryar Bajalan and Shook. To mark the occasion, they have shared an excerpt from the introduction and two poems from the collection.Continue Reading
New Releases in June & July 2023: A Focus on Syria
As always, if you know of books we’ve missed, please let us know at info@arablit.org.Continue Reading
New Short Fiction: Ahmed Fouad Eldin’s ‘Leeway’
” Baffled by each other’s proximity and propelled by the desire to brew our drink before the other, we both stretch out our hands, and then draw them back.”Continue Reading
Sunday Submissions: The Song Cave Manuscript Review
The Song Cave has opened its call for submissions for its manuscript review. Continue Reading
Lit & Found: ‘The Gifts of Movement,’ a Talk with Saïd Khatibi and Amara Lakhous
“I think the real migration for artists is the migration of languages.”Continue Reading