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Texts After the Screaming

Texts After the Screaming

Gaza, Poetry /
Nour Balousha wrote these two poems "after I stopped screaming, not because it ended, but because I grew too exhausted to keep screaming." ...

Samar Yazbek, Karim Kattan on National Book Award Longlist

Samar Yazbek, Karim Kattan on National Book Award Longlist
News /
Yesterday, the National Book Foundation announced the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award for Translated Literature. ...

Classic Short Fiction from Tunisia: ‘Hajj Zayan’

Classic Short Fiction from Tunisia: 'Hajj Zayan'
Fiction /
Mostafa Khraïef (1910-1967) was a prominent Tunisian poet, writer, and journalist ...

Fiction

Classic Short Fiction from Tunisia: ‘Hajj Zayan’

Classic Short Fiction from Tunisia: 'Hajj Zayan'

Mostafa Khraïef (1910-1967) was a prominent Tunisian poet, writer, and journalist.

...

Short Fiction by Muhammad Khudayyir

Short Fiction by Muhammad Khudayyir

A story from the fall of 1983 by the scribe of Basra, Muhammad Khudayyir.

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Stealing Sleep, Reclaiming Tomorrow

Stealing Sleep, Reclaiming Tomorrow

In the opening pages of The Sleep Thief by Ibtisam Azem (tr. Sinan Antoon), Palestinian protagonist, Gharib Haifawi, recounts how he was dubbed the “sleep thief” by his interrogators during his imprisonment.

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Poetry

Texts After the Screaming

Texts After the Screaming

Nour Balousha wrote these two poems “after I stopped screaming, not because it ended, but because I grew too exhausted to keep screaming.”

...

Song for Bassam Saba

Song for Bassam Saba

This poem originally appeared in our 2021 SONG issue of ArabLit Quarterly.

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The Red Suns, Purple Moons, and Gun-Carrying Mice of Syrian Poet Da’ad Haddad

The Red Suns, Purple Moons, and Gun-Carrying Mice of Syrian Poet Da'ad Haddad

“In her poetry world, the sun is red. The moon is purple. Snow is ubiquitous. Winter is eternal.”

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Interviews

On Music, Memory, and Damascus

On Music, Memory, and Damascus

“Music is one of the arts most connected to place, as it is a physical vibration in a space.”

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On Shaping ‘The Book of Damascus’

On Shaping ‘The Book of Damascus’

The Book of Damascus, ed. Zaher Omareen, is a new anthology in their “Reading the City” series. Here, editor Zaher Omareen talks with Fifi Bat-hef about selecting ten stories to represent a city as complex and storied as Damascus.

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Palestinian Sittis and the Inheritance of Memories

Palestinian Sittis and the Inheritance of Memories

In this conversation, Hooda Shawa offers inspiring insight into her experience writing such a personal and powerful novel as well as herself as an author.

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In Focus

From Gaza
Between Two Arabic Translators with Yasmeen Hanoosh
May Goes On: (Re)-Introducing May Ziadeh

From the archives

Another Road for Syrian Poetry

Another Road for Syrian Poetry

“The divide among poets has added a diaspora to the spatial diaspora, which scattered Syrians around the world.”

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Samer Abu Hawwash’s ‘It No Longer Matters If Anyone Loves Us’

Samer Abu Hawwash's 'It No Longer Matters If Anyone Loves Us'
This poem originally appeared in an-Nahar on October 25. * It No Longer Matters If Anyone Loves Us By Samer Abu Hawwash Translated ...

The Story of a Poem: Refaat Alareer’s ‘If I Must Die’

The Story of a Poem: Refaat Alareer's 'If I Must Die'
By Salih J Altoma  “And in Gaza and the West Bank, a new generation of poets persists. The most famous, ...