New Library-recommendation Project: 10 from Emily Drumsta

As instigated by award-winning bilingual author Hadil Ghoneim — who currently lives in the US — ArabLit is interviewing scholars, critics, and translators, and other bibliocentrics about the Arabic Literature in translation they would recommend for US’s public libraries: 

This will eventually build to a list of 100 book-buying recommendations. Having searched a number of public-library systems, we’ve decided there is no particular need to recommend Naguib Mahfouz, although in some library systems his works don’t appear unless you search “Mahfuz, Najib.”

ArabLit kicks off this project as we kicked off the “Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation” series, with Brown University’s Emily Drumsta.

Drumsta’s “ten” recommendations to librarians are actually fourteen; ArabLit wholly supports this manner of cheating. 

1. Tawfiq al-Hakim, Diary of a Country Prosecutor, translated by Abba Eban.

2. Taha Hussein, The Days, translated by E.H. Paxton, Hilary Wayment, and Kenneth Cragg.

3. Yusuf Idris, The Essential Yusuf Idrisedited by Denys Johnson-Davies, and The Sinnerstranslated by Kristin Peterson-Ishaq.

4. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, The Shiptranslated by Adnan Haydar & Roger Allen.

5. Radwa Ashour, The Woman from Tantouratranslated by Kay Heikkinen and/or The Journeytranslated by Michelle Hartman

6. Hoda Barakat, The Tiller of Waterstranslated by Marilyn Booth

7. Soleiman Fayyad, Voices, translated by Hosam Aboul Ela

8. Mahmoud Darwish, Memory for Forgetfulnesstranslated by Ibrahim Muhawi

9. Natalie Handal (ed.), The Poetry of Arab Women 

10. Sonallah Ibrahim, That Smelltranslated by Robyn Creswell + The Committeetranslated by Mary St. Germain and Charlene Constable