Upcoming Events: Poet Najwan Darwish, Palestine Art Week Begins, More
A few upcoming online events:
May 15
Join the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith for a virtual Nakba Day event with poet Najwan Darwish and translator Kareem James Abu-Zeid to discuss Darwish’s second book, Exhausted on the Cross. They’ll be in conversation with writer Nathalie Handal. Find more information here and register here.
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Palestine Art Week starts May 15 and runs through May 21, featuring film, theater, literature, visual art, and more. More about how to register at the Palestine Museum website.
May 17
The CGC Amman is hosting a conversation between Tasnim Qutait and Ruqaya Izzidien, author of The Watermelon Boys, at 7pm EEST (12pm EDT). Register via Zoom here.
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Emma Ramadan, recent winner of the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Abdellah Taïa’s A Country for Dying, and translator from Spanish, Sophie Hughes, will be talking about “Translating Excess”, specifically translating slang, profanity, and other such registers of language on May 17, 12pm MST (6pm GMT). Register via Zoom here.
May 18
The creative writing & cultural platform Takween will be hosting an Instagram live event with writer and translator Mona Kareem on “الترجمة كتدخل جمالي: عن رواية نسب”. For more information, see their Twitter post and participate on Instagram @takweenkw.
May 19
As part of the Yemen in Conflict project, the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) in partnership with Writing on the Wall brings together four Yemeni female poets: Amerah Saleh, Amina Atiq, Maliha Al-Asaadi and Maysoon Aleryani will be sharing their poetry and answering questions from the audience, moderated by Nawal Al-Maghafi. Find more information and register to attend here.
May 20
The MENAWA Reading Group will discuss their May read A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum. Join them via Zoom: Meeting ID 727 2975 3204 Passcode 277417 and find out more on their Twitter account.
Later in May:
May 23-29
The Abu Dhabi International Book Fair will take place from May 23-29 with a hybrid program of physical and online events. Find out more at their website. We will be highlighting some events nearer the time.
May 25
For the third session in the series on “Histories and Archives of Arabic Publishing” on May 25 at 5pm BST, Zeina Maasri, senior lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton, will speak alongside Berlin-based artist collective Fehras Publishing Practices (Sami Rustom, Omar Nicolas and Kenan Darwich) about their respective projects on Arabic publishing during the Cold War. Find more information about this event and the whole series at their website and register here.
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Join Mikey Muhanna as he interviews poet Zeina Hashem Beck for the afikra Conversations series on May 25, 5pm BST. Find more information here and RSVP using this form.
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In a joint event by WoWFEST, Comma Press and the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, authors Hassan Blasim and Christy Lefteri will be in conversation with Ted Hodgkinson about “Searching for the Words: Writing the Refugee Crisis” at 7pm CST. Get tickets for the event here.
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The winner of the 2021 International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced at an online event on May 25 at 10am BST (1pm GST). The event will be streamed on IPAF’s Facebook and YouTube channels.