Friday Finds: Huda Hamed’s ‘Things Are Not in Their Place’

In an interview Wednesday morning, which should be appearing on Qantara next week, Man Booker International-winning novelist Jokha al-Harthi recommended five Omani writers:

Of the five, I could find work in translation, online, by only one of them: Huda Hamed.

Hamed was one of the writers selected to participate in the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction nadwa in the UAE, which was co-led by novelists Sahar ElMougy and Mohammed Hasan Alwan.

Hamed was born in Rustaq, Oman, in 1981. She studied Arabic literature in Aleppo and has worked in journalism since graduating. She has already published three short-story collections and three novels. Her Things Are Not in Their Place (2009) won both the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity and Best Omani Publication of 2009.

It’s that novel that saw an excerpt, translated by Robin Moger, featured in Banipal, with the epigraph: “The lie alone is what makes our lives possible.”

Read the whole excerpt at Banipal.

A review of Hamed’s Alty Ta’ad Al Salalem (Who Counts Stairs).