Short Stories by 10 Palestinian Women, in English Translation

By ArabLit Staff

The history of the Palestinian short story in Arabic is marked by many women writers, from the innovative works of mid-century authors like Samira Azzam (1927-1967); to, more than a generation later, Liana Badr; to the more recent innovations of form and language by Maya Abu al-Hayat, Adania Shibli, Sheikha Helawy, and many others.

Because of how publishing currently works in English, there are dozens of individual short stories by Palestinian women in translation — either in anthologies or in issues of various journals around the world — but few full-length collections. As for single-author collections, we know of three in translation: Comma Press brought out Nayrouz Qarmout’s The Sea Cloak, which was translated by Perween Richards (with Charis Bredon, who translated the title story); ArabLit Books brought out a collection of short stories by Samira Azzam (1927-1967), translated by Ranya Abdelrahman, titled Out of Time; and Neem Tree Press published a collection of short stories by Sheikha Helawy titled They Fell Like Stars From the Sky & Other Stories, in Nancy Roberts’ translation. (Read a review on ArabLit.)

For anthologies, there is one we know of that focuses on short stories by Palestinian women, both written in English and in translation: Qissat: Short Stories by Palestinian Women, ed. Jo Glanville, which came out in 2007. There are also several anthologies of Palestinian work in translation that represent work by both men and women writers, such as Comma’s Book of Gaza (ed. Atef Abu Saif), Book of Ramallah (ed. Maya Abu al-Hayat), and Palestine + 100 (ed. Basma Ghalayini); The Common’s issue 23, which included a special portfolio of Palestinian short stories, ed. Hisham Bustani; Banipal issue 45, “Writers from Palestine.”

There are many more short stories by Palestinian women available in translation; we have brought together only a few. If you would like to suggest others, please tell us in the comments or email info@arablit.org.

Maya Abu al-Hayat

“Badia’s Magic Water,” translated by Yasmine Seale (Morning Star Online)

“The Gap,” translated by Yasmine Seale (ArabLit)

Maya Abu Al-Hayat is a Beirut-born Palestinian novelist and poet living in Jerusalem, but working in Ramallah. She has published two poetry books, numerous children’s stories and three novels, including her No One Knows His Blood Type (Dar Al-Adab, 2013), which is forthcoming in Hazem Jamjoum’s translation this fall.

Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud

“Oh, My Nana” translated by Nashwa Gowanlock (The Common)

Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud is a Palestinian writer from Mi’ilya village in Western Galilee and the author of Palestinian Women and Politicsin Israel. She holds a PhD in political science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently she is a professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University. Daoud has authored numerous articles and op-eds in Arabic, Hebrew and English and has published four volumes of Arabic poetry and literature.

Nashwa Gowanlock is a writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature. Her translations include After Coffee, by Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, and Shatila Stories, a collaborative novel by nine refugee writers. She is the co-translator, with Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, of Samar Yazbek’s memoir The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria and is a contributing editor of ArabLit Quarterly.

Asmaa Alghoul

“Your Baby”  translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid (Words Without Borders)

Samira Azzam

“The Roc Flew Over Shahraban” translated by Ranya Abdelrahman (The Common)

“Tears from a Glass Eye,” translated by Ranya Abdelrahman (The Markaz Review)

Samira Azzam (1927–1967) was born in Acre, Palestine. She was a teenager when her stories began to appear in the journal Falastin, under the pen name Fatat al-Sahel, or Girl of the Coast. After completing her basic education, she worked as a schoolteacher at 16, and was later appointed headmistress of a girls’ school. In 1948 she fled Palestine with her family to Lebanon, where she became a journalist. Azzam was an acclaimed Arabic translator of English-language classics by Pearl Buck, Sinclair Lewis, Somerset Maugham, Bernard Shaw, John Steinbeck, and Edith Wharton, among others, as well as a beloved writer and an innovator of the short-story form.

Ranya Abdelrahman is a translator of Arabic literature into English. After working for more than 16 years in the information technology industry, she changed careers to pursue her passion for books, promoting reading and translation. She has published translations in ArabLit Quarterly, The Markaz Review, and The Common, and is the translator of Out of Time, a short story collection by the late Palestinian author Samira Azzam. She is currently translating Damascus: The Story of a City by Alaa Mortada, which won the 2019 Etisalat Award for Children’s Literature in the Best Text category, and her co-translation of best-selling Kuwaiti author Bothayna Al-Essa’s satirical novel Guardian of Superficialities, with Sawad Hussain, is out this spring.

Liana Badr

“Letters from the Sea,” translated by Omnia Amin and Aida Bamia (World Literature Today)

Liana Badr is a Palestinian novelist, short-story writer, and film director, born in Jerusalem, is one of the most celebrated and translated Palestinian writers. She was exiled from Jericho in 1967 and has lived in many countries. She has directed seven documentary films, which have received many international awards.

Aida Bamia is Palestinian American and a retired faculty member at the University of Florida, where she taught Arabic language and literature, covering the Middle East and North Africa. Omnia Amin earned her PhD in modern and contemporary English literature from Queen Mary University of London. She is an author, translator, and professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Zayed University in Dubai, UAE.

Sheikha Hussein Helawy

“Who Drew the Curtains?”, translated by Nariman Youssef (The Common).

Sheikha Hussein Helawy was born in 1968 in Ar-rai Dhil al-Araj, a derecognized Bedouin village in the Haifa district, which was demolished by the Israeli authorities in 1990. She studied at Catholic schools in Haifa before moving to Jaffa. She holds a master’s degree in Arabic and is currently working on a PhD thesis. Helawy writes poetry and short stories, and the English translations of her work have appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Granta, Boston Review, Bellingham Review, and Best Small Fictions 2020. Her short story collection Order C345 won AlMultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story.

Nariman Youssef is a Cairo-born literary translator based in London. She has led and curated translation workshops with Shadow Heroes, Shubbak Festival and Africa Writes. Her recent translations include Mo(a)t: Stories from Arabic, Inaam Kachachi’s The American Granddaughter, Donia Kamal’s Cigarette Number Seven, and contributions to publications like The Common, ArabLit Quarterly, and Words Without Borders. Nariman holds a master’s degree in translation studies from the University of Edinburgh.

Abeer Khshiboon

“The Stranger” translated by Nashwa Gowanlock (The Common)

Abeer Khshiboon was born in Haifa in 1984, grew up in Galilee, and has been living in Berlin, Germany, since 2018. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and two master’s degrees, one in educational counseling from the University of Haifa and the other in Jewish theology from the University of Potsdam. She is a doctoral candidate at the faculty of theology of Humboldt University of Berlin. She is the author of the short story collection Small Joys, which received an honorable mention in the A M Qattan Foundation’s Young Writer of the Year Award competition in 2012.

Nashwa Gowanlock is a writer, editor, and translator of Arabic literature. Her translations include After Coffee, by Abdelrashid Mahmoudi, and Shatila Stories, a collaborative novel by nine refugee writers. She is the co-translator, with Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp, of Samar Yazbek’s memoir The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria and is a contributing editor of ArabLit Quarterly.

Nayrouz Qarmout

“The Sea Cloak,” translated by Charis Olszok (YouTube, from Comma Press)

Nayrouz Qarmout is a Palestinian writer and activist. Born in Damascus in 1984, as a Palestinian refugee, she returned to the Gaza Strip, as part of the 1994 Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement, where she now lives. She graduated from al-Azhar University in Gaza with a degree in Economics. She currently works in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, raising awareness of gender issues and promoting the political and economic role of women in policy and law, as well as the defense of women from abuse, and highlighting the role of women’s issues in the media.

Charis Olszok is a scholar of Arabic fiction and culture, and a translator of contemporary Arabic fiction.

Adania Shibli

“Isolated,” translated by Katharine Halls (New Directions Books)

“Mushrooms Withering in My Fridge,” translated by Yasmine Seale (Fictionable)

“A Tin Ball,” translator anonymous (ArabLit)

“Out of Time,” translator anonymous (Drunken Boat)

Adania Shibli was born in Palestine in 1974. Her first two novels appeared in English with Clockroot Books as Touch (tr. Paula Haydar, 2010) and We Are All Equally Far From Love (tr. Paul Starkey, 2012). She was awarded the Young Writer’s Award by the A. M. Qattan Foundation in 2002 and 2004.

Nibal Thawabteh

‘For She Who Birthed a Dream and She Who Birthed a Sorrow,’ tr. Faten Hafez (ArabLit)

Nibal Thawabteh is an author and activist who works at Birzeit University in Palestine.

Faten Hafez is a poet and writer, and also teaches literature and composition at Kean University.