Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing just announced that they’ve signed up حيث لا تسقط الأمطار (Where the Rain Doesn’t Fall – Dar Al Adab 2010), the first novel by the Jordanian poet Amjad Nasser. BQFP is planning to release the book in English in 2013.
Jordanian-born Nasser has lived in London since 1987, where he’s currently managing editor and cultural editor of the daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. He’s previously had one volume of poems published in English, Shepherd of Solitude: Selected Poems, translated by Khaled Mattawa.
Nasser published two prose works previous to his novel, the travel books Flight of Wings (1998) and Under More than One Sky (2002), for which he was recognized with the Ibn Battuta Prize for Travel Writing in 2009.
More about Amjad Nasser:
Selected Video
Banipal founder Margaret Obank, with Amjad Nasser, reading his poetry in English translation. And laughing.
Events
Nasser will be at the “State of Emergency” event at the Southbank Centre on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Reviews
Susannah Tarbush reviews Nasser’s poetry collection in translation, Shepherd of Solitude.
Al-Arab: الشخصية المنشطرة في “حيث لا تسقط الأمطار”
The novel’s Goodreads page, where the author Ma’n Abutaleb gives the book 4 stars. (Others also rated it, but we don’t know them.)
Poems in Translation
Gates to the Sky, But They Are Narrow
Or You Could Translate It As…
