In “No Zombies in Gaza: Horror in Arabic Cinema” — published last Halloween — Yazan al-Saadi wrote that, “Horror’s appeal is universal, deeply rooted in our common primordial desire to experience a controlled state of fear. The experience is essentially cathartic.” What, then, is horror literature? In a world filled with so many legitimate horrors, what’s the point?
A seminar and a festival — in Dubai and in Cairo — are celebrating the life of “the Dean of Arabic Literature,” Taha Hussein. The great author died forty years ago yesterday.
The festival, which will take place on the University of Oklahoma campus from October 29 – November 1, will spotlight Palestinian-American novelist Naomi Shihab Nye, who is set to receive the $25,000 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature.
Today and tomorrow, “Cartooning for Peace” will bring together cartoonists from across Tunisia as the country continues to probe its red lines and limits to freedom of expression. This is against the backdrop of the Tunis International Book Fair, which will run through Nov. 3. Chiara Comito wrote about the fair — and the situation of publishing in Tunisia — on her blog, Editoriaraba.
Literature for young adults has been part of the English-language landscape since at least the 19th century. Arabic has also had its YA titles — the popular “Adventures of the 5,” for instance, and I suppose 1,001 Nights could be YA crossover — but recently, Arabic has seen a fresh interest in broadening the genre, thanks in part to the new Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children’s Literature (YA category).
This past week, both the Dubai-based Emirates LitFest (March 4-8 2014) and the Sharjah Book Fair (November 6-16 2013) released their programs; both of which are filled with big literary names.
Alice Kloker went to the recent London talk “From Sindbad to Sci-Fi: Reimagining Arab Science Fiction” and shares her impressions.
Ferial Ghazoul and John Verlenden — both at the American University in Cairo — have won this year’s University of Arkansas Arabic Translation Award for their collection “Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems of Qassim Haddad,” by Bahrain’s great living poet.
Young Iraqi poet Saif Alsaegh was born and raised in the Risafa neighborhood of Baghdad. He was born during the first Gulf War, in 1991, and studied one year at the University of Baghdad — majoring in journalism and working for the Ikhbariya News Agency — before he went to Damascus to study English in order to qualify for a scholarship at a US university. That’s where he is now, at the University of Great Falls in Great Falls, MT, with plans to publish his first collection of poetry, Iraqi Headaches, in December.
