Why Ask John Burns?
The NYTimes has a “Notes from the Front Lines” piece up where you can ask John Burns about why Muslims “radicalize.” As my six-year-old would say, “What does it mean, […]
January 2010
Coming in 2010 from AUC Press: The Recommended and Not-as-recommended
The Animists, Ibrahim al-Koni. February 2010. I think al-Koni’s Bleeding of the Stone is brilliant, a book of international standing, with things to tell us about Libya’s Tuareg people, about […]
Youssef Rakha’s Coffee with Denys Johnson-Davies
A few reminiscences from the father of (modern) Arabic-English literary translation.
Nomadics Translates Dib
Nomadics has translated three poems by Mohammed Dib: “Guardian Shadow” 1, 2, and 3. Dib is an Algerian writer much-lauded in France but little translated into English. Was an Algerian […]
Hisham Matar’s Father
Hisham Matar, author of In the Country of Men, has a heart-wrenching piece in The Guardian about how his father—imprisoned since 1990—may yet be alive. “Too many facts. I am […]
Taha Hussein’s /The Days/ to be Removed from School Curricula?
Although largely unknown in the West, Taha Hussein is one of the towering figures of Egyptian literature. The elimination of his The Days—a foundational piece of Egyptian prose—from school curricula […]
The Ghaddafi Prize for Literature Goes to…
Now here’s a literary prize not everyone will want on their resume: The Ghaddafi Prize, awarded this year to writer and critic Dr. Jaber Asfour. Asfour also is director of […]
The Center of the (Poetic) World
Novels may not be a Western invention—a number of scholars call Ibn Tufail the first novelist; his Hayy ibn Yaqdhan likely influenced Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe—regardless, it was Westerners who […]
Abeer Esber: For Wrong Reasons, Easier for Arab Women to Publish
After all the kerfuffle about how many Arabic Booker nominees use the girls’ room instead of the boys’ (and how this is proof of literary discrimination), I appreciate Syrian author […]