‘The Corpse Washer,’ ‘A Concordance of Leaves’ Win Arab-American Book Awards
According to the Arab American Museum’s Matthew Stiffler, the 2014 Arab American Book Awards — given to books published in 2013 — have just been announced.
August 2014
Arabic Translator Barbara Romaine Among 20 to Receive NEA Translation Grants
The US-based National Endowment for the Arts has announced the latest round of literary translation fellowships.
Canongate to Pubish ‘Unclassified’ Version of Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s Guantanamo Memoir
Bookseller reported yesterday that Canongate had acquired a 466-page memoir written by Mauritanian Guantanamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi, which Slahi finished in 2006, but which had apparently been held as a “classified secret” for seven years.
Walks and Readings Around Pittsburgh Feature Iraqi, Syrian Poems
“Digital Sanctuaries Pittsburgh” launched last week — Aug. 7-9 — on that city’s north side, in a garden-to-garden walk featuring the work of acclaimed musicians and writers, including Dunya Mikhail and Osama Alomar. The virtual performances continue to echo.
36 Books Burnt at Egyptian Public Library?
The state-run Al-Ahram newspaper reported on August 8 that Major General Ahmed Abdallah, current governor of the Red Sea district, ordered that three dozen “Muslim Brotherhood” books at the Hurghada Public Library be burnt.
Available This Month: Award-winning ‘Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems’
Ferial Ghazoul and John Verlenden — both at the American University in Cairo — won last year’s University of Arkansas Arabic Translation Award for their collection Chronicles of Majnun Layla and Selected Poems […]
6 of the Most Beautiful Writings from and for Gaza
Mahmoud Darwish once wrote, of Gaza, “We are unfair to her when we search for her poems.” We are certainly unfair when we scrabble anywhere for poems, searching for aesthetic pleasure in others’ suffering. But here, poetry seems to have welled up from the need to speak, to create, to defy silence.
Iraqi Novelist: It Might Be Too Late To Save Iraq’s Christians
In two of his novels, The Corpse Washer and Hail Mary, Iraqi novelist Sinan Antoon has touched on the growing sectarianization of Iraq. In an interview published on Ahram Online and Jadaliyya, he says “it may be too late to save Iraq’s Christians.”
Marilyn Hacker’s Translation Habib Tengour’s ‘Crossings’ Longlisted for 2014 NTA
No Arabic-language books made the 15-title longlist for the American Literary Translators Association’s 2014 National Translation Award (NTA). The sole Arab title was Habib Tengour’s “Crossings,” beautifully translated from the French by poet Marilyn Hacker.