Callaloo 32:4: Featuring Arab Authors

The Callaloo website is a wee bit behind; good that Laila Lalami put out the alert about the current edition featuring Middle Eastern/North African authors.

Callaloo 32: 4 features poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Hayan Charara, Nathalie Handal, Fady Joudah, and Sholeh Wolpe; nonfiction by D.H. Melhem; fiction by Raja Alem, Ibrahim al-Koni, Radwa Ashour, Pauline Kaldas, and, of course, Laila.

The magazine’s table of contents is online through Project MUSE. It has an excerpt from Basrayatha, one of my favorite “is this a novel?” novels, as well as from the classic The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist, Ibrahim al-Koni’s strange but fascinating The Animists, and other excellent books.

If you want a lovely flyover of Arabic literature (not necessarily what’s hot off the presses, but good stuff), I suggest picking this up.