There are two very promising Arabic books coming out from Clockroot Books this fall (in English).
Adania Shibli’s Touch, longlisted for the 2011 Best Translated Book Award, was one of the highlights of my 2010 reading. The book reads like an extended prose poem, and is rendered beautifully in English by translator Paula Haydar. The novella is narrated by an eight-year-old girl trying to understand a myriad of sensory information during the time of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. You can read an excerpt on the Clockroot website.
This fall, Clockroot will publish Shibli’s second novel, We Are All Equally Far from Love (كلنا بعيد بذات المقدار عن الحب), trans. Paul Starkey. You can read the opening paragraphs on World Lit Today (free) and spend $9.95 on the whole excerpt—or save your money for when the book comes out.
Also coming this fall is Alexandra Chreiteh’s Always Coca Cola (دائما كوكاكولا ), trans. Michelle Hartman, who was a Banipal prize runner-up for her translation of Iman Humaydan Younes’s Wild Mulberries.
More from Shibli and Chreiteh:
Adania Shibli’s “Silence,” on Words Without Borders
Lebanese American University: LAU grad garners praise for publishing captivating short novel
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