If you’re in London, or can get there, synchronize your calendar with these events — revealed yesterday — which are running July 11-25 in the city’s largest biennial festival of contemporary Arab culture:
This year aims to be even bigger, with more than 60 events spread out across London over the course of the two-week festival.
Literary events range widely, with high-profile novelists (a few: Samar Yazbek, Sinan Antoon, Ahmed Saadawi, Atef Abu Saif, Ali al-Muqri, and the two headliners, Hoda Barakat and Elias Khoury), poets like Antoon, Choman Hardi, Mourid Barghouti, Ghareeb Iskander, as well as scholars, translators, and others.
There will also be a range of genres. The festival will host a discussion of Arabic science fiction similar to those showcased at LonCon 3 and the 2013 and 2014 Nour Festivals, as well as a children’s-literature workshop, a talk on experimental forms, and engagements with graphic novelling.
If you’re over 12, you certainly won’t want to miss out on a workshop with Lebanese artist Lena Merhej, author of Another Year and Yogurt and Jam, or How My Mom Became Lebanese, where you can experiment with making a bilingual comic.
There is also an event called “The Rise of Arabic Literature in English?“, with its skeptical question mark, at which I will be speaking. Indeed, there are five of us, and it’s not clear how everyone will get a word in.
In any case, if you can make it, you should. To properly synchronize your calendar, see the whole listing of this year’s events at shubbak.co.uk/.