Arab World Books Publishes Special Jan 25 Edition

Novelist Somaya Ramadan is among the authors who contributed to Arab World Books‘ latest “literature and essay corner.”

Ramadan wrote “I Saw God in Tahrir” for the book group’s special Jan 25 issue, which includes songs, articles, and poems in both English and Arabic.

The ten-year-old Arab World Books is, I believe, the largest book group in the Arabic-reading world. (This month’s selection is Farouk Goweida’s poetry collection This Country is No Longer Mine.)

Although they have a fairly awful website, they have a great deal of literary work (scattered hither and yon), as well as biographies on hundreds of authors, including the aforementioned Ramadan, who won the Naguib Mahfouz Award in 2001 for her novel Leaves of Narcissus.

As long as we’re on the subject of Somaya Ramadan:

Read an excerpt from Leaves of Narcissus, trans. Marilyn Booth

And also new on the Arab World Books site:

A translation of Iraqi author Mahmoud Saeed‘s enjoyable “The Soldier and the Pigs.” Worth reading, just step around the typos.