Lebanese writer and painter Etel Adnan has been named a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, a distinction she shares with artists as varied as Terry Gilliam, Shakira, Tim Burton, Elif Shafak, Jude Law, and Philip Glass.
ArabLit and 7iber continue coverage of this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) longlist – in English and Arabic — with Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi and The Sad Night of Ali Baba, about which al-Rikabi said, “I don’t think I have ever encountered as many moral dilemmas in writing any of my previous novels as I did with this one.”
Jona Fras interviewed Iraqi novelist Abdel Khaliq al-Rikabi about his IPAF-longlisted novel, The Sad Night of Ali Baba, how he went about writing it, and why al-Rikabi believes “that I had to write this novel, whatever happened.”
Khaled Khalifa’s heart-squeezing “In Praise of Hatred” is scheduled to appear in the US this April. As often happens, the US edition will have a different cover from the UK edition, which came out in 2012. As also often happens, the cover will feature a woman who is covered, only her eyes appearing.
ArabLit and 7iber continue coverage of this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) longlist – in English and Arabic — with Khaled Khalifa and No Knives in the Kitchens of This City, a powerful novel that explores death, shame, and the lives of those who “refused to bow down despite the losses.”
Asmaa Abdallah reviews Khaled Khalifa’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF)-longlisted No Knives in the Kitchens of this City. The book has already won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal, and Abdallah is not surprised that this “powerful, morbid, and paralyzing depiction of a devastated and deteriorating Aleppo” would be so lauded.
At the beginning of next month (March 4-8), the sixth annual Emirates LitFest will open with more than a hundred writers from more than twenty countries.
ArabLit and 7iber continue coverage of this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) longlist – in English and Arabic — with Ahmed Saadawi and “Frankenstein in Baghdad,” which wonders what happens when a killer won’t die.
Al-Mustafa Najjar reviews Ahmad Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad, longlisted for this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF). Najjar calles it “a novel that suspends moral judgement.”
