On Saturday, January 22, 2022, ArabLit Quarterly‘s Winter 2021 guest editor Ali Al-Jamri will host “’Refuse To Be Erased’: Readings and Conversation from ALQ FOLK issue.”
Join us as we celebrate the publication of ArabLit Quarterly: FOLK, the latest issue from ALQ. This special double-issue features essays, prose, and poetry in translation from across the region. The biggest issue of ALQ yet features pre-Islamic myths of the women of Al-Yamama, journeys through Bahraini village folklore and history, memories of Makkan children songs, love poetry from Mamluk Cairo, and queerplatonic retellings of a Palestinian folkstory.
The issue is a celebration of stories and poetry that are oral, anti-professional, transgressive, strange, and fantastical. In it, the ordinary and extraordinary people at the margins, as Alaa Murad writes, “refuse to be erased.”
Join us to hear from Zainab Almahdi, Eman Quotah, Alaa Murad, and more, as we read excerpts of poetry, prose and essays and discuss how these folk stories and songs, both old and now, form a whole tapestry.
Watching the Event
The event will broadcast out to our YouTube channel, where you can join. You can register via EventBrite or Facebook to have a YouTube link sent by email on the day.
The event is free to attend. ArabLit Quarterly is a small operation, and every bit helps. Please support us by purchasing a copy or a subscription to ArabLit Quarterly.
Find Out More
You can read the introduction to FOLK by editors M Lynx Qualey and Ali Al-Jamri.
Read one of the short stories in the issue, Yahia Al-Tahir Abdullah’s “Death in Three Portraits,” translated by Salma Harland.
You can purchase a copy of FOLK to read along on the evening from Gumroad. Physical and digital options are both available.
