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Forthcoming December 2024: Satire, Poetry, & Women on Prison

If you know of other Arabic books forthcoming in translation in December 2024 that should be added to this list, please let us know either in the comments or at info@arablit.org.

Sand-Catcher, by Omar Khalifah, tr. Barbara Romaine (Coffee House Press, December 3)

From the publisher:

Four young, Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked, on account of their heritage, with profiling one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be all too happy to go on record, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed. This living witness to history, this secular saint, has no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to serve as an inspiration for the youth of tomorrow. What he wants is to be left alone.

As threats from the team’s editor-in-chief put more and more pressure on the journalists, they must decide just how far they’re willing to go to get the old man on the record. After all, what possible weight can one stubborn demand for privacy have when balanced against the imperative to bear witness?

Look for an excerpt of this fast-paced, thought-provoking romantic satire on ArabLit December 3.

A Horse at the Door, by Wadih Saadeh, ed. & tr. Robin Moger

From the publisher:

Wadih Saadeh was born Wadih Amine Stephan in 1948 in the village of Chabtine in northern Lebanon. As a young man he moved to Beirut where he first began to write poetry and where, in 1973, he would distribute handwritten copies of his first collection, The evening has no siblings. He lived and travelled between Beirut and Europe—Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus—until in 1988 he finally emigrated with his family to Australia, where he lives now: ‘a village farmer, resident in Sydney.’ A figure of central importance in the development of the Arabic prose poem.

Find poems by Saadeh at the Tenement website.

Arabic, between Love and War, ed. Norah Alkharashi & Yasmine Haj (trace press, December 15)

From the publisher:

In Arabic, the word for love حب  is one letter shorter than the word for war حرب

Here, translators gather to perform an intimate labour, moving words from Arabic into English, or reversing such direction as language dissolves into cities, landscapes, or portals that open to rubble, or only air. 

The poems in this collection reverberate in the space between there and here, silence and voice, original and translation, and the polarities of war and love.

Journals of Salt: Tunisian Women’s Writings on Experiences of Political Imprisonment, ed. Haifa Zangana and translated by Katharine Halls and Nariman Yousef (Syracuse University Press, December 20)

From the publisher:

Salt Journals is a compelling collection of essays by Tunisian women, sharing their personal experiences with dictatorship and oppression. While rooted in the history and culture of Tunisia, these narratives reflect universal feelings of isolation, pain, and the indomitable quest for freedom. Drawn from a variety of different professions, including a lawyer, an engineer, a nurse, a student, and a city council member, among others, these women are contesting the culture of silence surrounding women’s prison narratives. Employing words as their weapons of nonviolent resistance, the authors recount the harsh realities of a militarized state and its oppressive prison system. Their creative defiance against state repression emerges not just as a means of survival, but as a profound act of dissidence, reclaiming control from the brutality imposed upon their lives. A testament to the power of self-representation, Salt Journals opens a vital space for dialogue on the necessity of empathy, resilience, and the importance of speaking out in the face of tyranny.