Episode 52 of the BULAQ podcast comes together around a discussion of three books:
First, we talked our way through a book that tells the stories of women who rallied to ISIS; then a novel that focuses on a Franco-Moroccan family grappling with the end of colonialism; and last, a picaresque, satirical novel from 1940s Egypt that has been recently re-discovered.
Show Notes:
Ursula’s review of the Moroccan-French author Leila Slimani’s latest novel, Le Pays des Autres, will be out soon from the New York Review of Books. Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny was an international best-seller; her new book is part of a planned historical trilogy set in Morocco.
Adel Kamel’s long-forgotten, now-remembered classic Malim al-Akbar recently appeared in English as The Magnificent Conman of Cairo. A special section on ArabLit marked the launch.
Literary detective Mohamed Shoair is author of the acclaimed 2018 popular history Children of the Alley: The Story of the Forbidden Novel, which follows the story of Naguib Mahfouz’s most controversial novel. A chapter of Shoair’s book appears online in Samah Selim’s translation.
Mahfouz talks briefly about the Harafish, his circle of literary friends, in Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate, 1994-2001, from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy.
Albert Cossery was a French writer of Levantine origin, born in Cairo. Although he settled in Paris in 1945, he set all his wonderful novels — about criminals, layabouts and would-be revolutionaries — in Egypt or the middle east.
The crime issue of ArabLit Quarterly is available now.