Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi published a piece on Al Monitor, “Gulf Cities Emerge as New Centers of Arab World” which he said, in a public Facebook post, was “controversial even before publishing it.”
It’s Thursday, and thus time for a wrestling-with Iraqi poetry. This week, Sinan Antoon writes on Al Jazeera about how “Baghdad’s appearance has changed dramatically over 10 years – but its love of poetry and writing has not.”
Today is the birthday of Tawfiq al-Hakim, who was not just was not just Egypt’s could-have-been Nobel laureate (he died in 1987, a year before Mahfouz won the prize), he was a wild innovator, a player, a wit, and — according to Mahfouz — the true genitor of the (modern) Arabic novel.
The And Other Stories groups in New York, Cairo, and London all held their first discussion — of Hani al-Rahib’s The Epidemic — and now are moving on to book number two, Mustafa Khalifa’s The Shell.
Sarah Irving covered Raba’i Madhoun’s July talk about his novel The Lady from Tel Aviv for ArabLit. But for those who want to see more, the Arab British Centre has just posted a video of the event.
Late last week, Jean-Luc Lagardère and the Arab World Institute Foundation announced the eight titles on the shortlist for the first ever ‘Prix de la Jeune Litterature Arabe’: To be […]
For Italian readers, Golan Haji’s new book of poems, Autumn, Here, is Magical & Vast was published in Rome on the 21st of September in a bilingual Arabic-Italian edition; the Italian was trans. Patrizia Zanelli. For Arabic- and English-language readers, Haji will be at London’s Mosaic Rooms on October 23 at 7 p.m., for a conversation with Ammar Haj Ahmed. ISA the recorded lecture will appear online shortly after.
It was three months ago that the “Librarians and Archivists for Palestine” group traveled throughout Palestine and Israel in order to connect with colleagues, bear witness, share skills, and seek out possibilities for joint work. Now, coming on October 24, the group will report back on a wide range of findings.
Geert Jan van Gelder has translated classical Arabic poetry and prose into Dutch and into English. Among these are the two volumes he’s translated and edited for the Library of Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology and the Epistle of Forgiveness Volume One: A Vision of Heaven and Hell, which he worked on with Gregor Schoeler. In an interview that first appeared on the Library of Arabic Literature blog, Van Gelder talked about a range of poetical & translational issues, including why his admiration for — and irritation with — al-Ma‘arri have deepened.
