Hisham Matar: On the Novelist and Dictatorship
Libyan creative writer Hisham Matar writes as if he dreams; no detail is without a symbol or an emotional function.
February 2012
Literary Highlights of Spring 2012
MARCH March 6-10 Emirates Lit Fest March 6-16 Riyadh International Book Fair March 14 “This is Jerusalem“: Poetry by Najwan Darwish and music by Basel Zayed. 8 p.m. at the Free Word Lecture […]
From Whence ‘Authentic’ Egyptian Literary Culture?
Egypt undoubtedly occupies and has occupied a central place in Arabic literary production. Is this the result of colonial-era pressures and boundary-making? Or is it because of a long-standing and […]
Soueif’s ‘Cairo: My City’ Keeps Hope for a Thousand Nights and a Night
Why I think Ahdaf Soueif’s structural choices in Cairo: My City, Our Revolution were simple but brilliant (from the Egypt Independent): Ahdaf Soueif’s “Cairo: My City, Our Revolution” is an addition to the […]
‘We Don’t Live in a Post-colonial World’: On Music & Translation
By Jennifer Sears and Katrina Weber Ashour The recent panel discussion “Music, Literature and Comparative Composition: The Task of Translation,” sponsored by Columbia University’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, raised […]
On Transliteration: Koran, Quran, Qur’an, Qur2an
For a few brief moments, my husband and I considered registering our one-year-old’s second name as “Ta7rir.” The 7 is the most popular way to represent the breathier, harder Arabic […]
Register Now for ‘Translation in and of the World’ Conference in Qatar
From the mailbag: The third annual Translation Conference, organized by the Translation and Interpreting Institute, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, and the British Council, is set to [begin] on April 29, […]
Radwa Ashour’s ‘Siraaj’: A Trip into the Past that Ends in the Present
This post was launched by Mona Elnamoury’s presentation at on the “Narrating the Arab Spring” conference that took place from Feb. 18-20 at Cairo University. By Mona Elnamoury It was […]
Narrating the ‘Arab Spring’: Who Owns the Story?
By Assmaa Naguib “Asmaa Mahfouz will never ever ever ever ever be a representative of the revolution.” This passionate statement was made by an audience member at a panel of the […]