Archipelago Books has announced that Elias Khoury’s latest novel, his International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF)-longlisted Sinalcol, will be forthcoming in the spring of 2015:
The translation is being done by Humphrey Davies, who also translated Khoury’s celebrated Gate of the Sun, his Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted Yalo, and his beautifully circular novel As Though She Were Sleeping.
It was a surprise when Khoury’s Sinalcol did not advance tot he 2013 IPAF shortlist, but it has already been translated into French, by Rania Samara. It will be coming out in the UK from Quercus books. The publisher’s brief:
Nasri is a pharmacist in Beirut who lives alone with her two children, Karim and Nassim. The first, a medical student, is active in leftist circles under the nom de guerre “Sinalcol” (a nickname derived from “alcohol-free” in Spanish), while the second is Phalangist. The two brothers are in love with Hind, who is enamored of Karim. But eventually, after the departure of the latter to France, she marries Nassim. Their history is born of other stories that intertwine to form an imposing fresco of Lebanese society over the past fifty years.
More on Khoury:
ArabLit’s Jennifer Sears has written an overview of Khoury’s work: Elias Khoury: A Writer’s Journey
By ArabLit, an Elias Khoury talk at the AUC with translator Humphrey Davies and filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah: Elias Khoury on Why the Greatest Authors Are Invisible
From an interview with Andre Naffis Sahely: Humphrey Davies on Tahrir, Elias Khoury in an Undershirt, and ‘Mentally Gratifying’ Reads
ArabLit’s Mohga Hassib interviewed Khoury this year:Elias Khoury on Writing About Torture, and an Author’s Relationship to His Characters
Also by Hassib, another talk at the AUC: Elias Khoury on Looking at the Arab Spring Through the Eyes of Children
