June 2011
3 Books That Won’t Help You Understand Iraq
The new issue of World Literature Today is out (July/August 2011) and includes a feature titled “What to Read Now: 3 Books to Better Understand Iraq.”
Translating Back in Time: The Use of Olde English
The poems in question are Labid’s (ac 560-661) “Lament” and “Last Simile,” trans. Ange Mlinko.
The Torture Novel
While the “prison novel” is a recognizable and even celebrated genre, fewer novelists—Arab or non-Arab—have seriously confronted torture.
Teaching Arabic Fiction: Fall 2011
I’m teaching a class on contemporary world fiction…, and I wonder if you would have any suggestions for recent anthologies of short stories (as in, the last couple years) from the Middle East or North Africa that I might be able to use.
‘Beer in the Snooker Club’: Egypt Then and Now
Has it been a while since you last read Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club? Well, then I encourage you to read it again. From my glance at the classic novel (and what it says about Egypt, then and now) in AGNI online:
And the Nominations for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction Begin…
The season of the 2012 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF, or, if you must, “Arabic Booker”) has begun.
Post-Jan25, Is It Possible to Write Novels About Religion?
This week, Alaa Hamed, who is now a representative of the Egyptian Secular Party, said Salafi leaders destroyed the fence around his house with bulldozers, in part because of his books.
And Now a Literary Prize Has to Be Courageous, Too?
Weidner asserts that the choice is “cowardly,” because Sansal is not critical of any of the sacred German cows and further that Sansal is only “half Arab” because he does’t write in Arabic. (We’ll just ignore that second, odd bit of criticism.)