Forthcoming May 2025: Award-winning Novels, Cordoban Invective, & Syrian Short Fiction
As publication dates often slip — and new books surface — we try to have a glance at what’s really coming in translation from Arabic at the start of each month. If you have more books to add, please let us know.
Sleep Phase, by Mohamed Kheir, tr. Robin Moger (Two Lines Press, May 13)
From the publisher:
Empty Cages, by Fatima Qandil, tr. Adam Talib (AUC Press, May 27)
From the publisher:
“The discovery of an old tin of chocolates, its contents long ago devoured, marks the entry into this intimate story that reaches back through a lifetime of memories in search of self and home, with the relationship between mother and daughter at its core. Fatma Qandil describes, in startling and immersive prose, growing up in a middle-class Egyptian family, the youngest child and witness to their declining fortunes. Spanning the 1960s to the present day, her happy childhood melts away to reveal the fecklessness of her selfish older brothers, her father’s addiction, her mother’s illness, and the violence and many deaths, both literal and figurative, that she endures.”
Look for an excerpt from this vibrant, propulsive novel on May 27 on ArabLit.
The Book of Damascus: A City in Short Fiction, ed. Zaher Omareen (Comma Press, May 29)
Bringing together fiction from celebrated writers, The Book of Damascus is an anthology of short stories charting the social and and cultural change of Damascus over the last fifty years, creating a literary map of the city.
From the publisher:
Damascus is a city of contradictions. Simultaneously the oldest city in the world, rich with Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic history architecture, and one of the most modern and developed in the Middle East, it stands at a cross-roads between East and West, the past and the future, peace and war. It fully merits its titles ‘City of Jasmine’ and ‘the Pearl of the East’, while being riddled with checkpoints, pointless interruptions from the military, and traffic-jams. Though the devastating Civil War seems to have ground to a stalemate, the tensions and psychological trauma of this conflict linger on. And yet, the people of Damascus maintain their reputation for being some of the warmest, kindest, most welcoming people in the world.
The stories in this anthology reflect some of these contradictions, with tales of love, heartbreak, political satire and adsurdity. Featuring writers both from and currently living in the city, it captures glimpses of the 12-year conflict that beset the country that no amount of journalism could hope to come close to.
The Genius of Invective: Ibn Zaydūn’s Letter Explained, by Ibn Nubātah, edited and translated by Peter Webb (Library of Arabic Literature, May)
From the publisher:
In eleventh-century Cordoba, the celebrated poet Ibn Zaydūn found himself jockeying for the affections of Wallādah, accomplished poet and free-spirited daughter of an Umayyad caliph. Looking to embarrass a rival suitor, Ibn Zaydūn mischievously wrote and publicized an eloquent, erudite, and searing rejection letter in Wallādah’s name, which went on to become one of the most widely read works of Arabic literature. His letter was so rich with historical references and sophisticated metaphors that it became a cultural touchstone among the literary elite. One could not belong in refined circles if one did not understand Ibn Zaydūn’s letter.
Three centuries later, the Egyptian litterateur Ibn Nubātah wrote a guide to this widely-admired text. In The Genius of Invective, a brilliant work of explication, Ibn Nubātah supplements Ibn Zaydūn’s complete letter with concise biographies of every figure referenced in it and glosses arcane Arabic terms. This wide-ranging volume offered readers a veritable encyclopedia of the key cultural and literary references that peppered Ibn Zaydūn’s famous letter.
The Cinderellas of Muscat, by Huda Hamed, translated by Chip Rossetti (Banipal Books, May)
From the publisher:
In her novel Omani author Huda Hamed confronts the challenges that people, particularly women, face as Muscat’s modernisation replaces old ways of living in this enchanting and modern take on the Cinderella tale. A group of women friends become jinn themselves in the guise of Cinderellas.
During the modernisation of Muscat, its people’s spirits seemed to harden and dry up, and one day the female jinn just disappeared. Where did they go to? Have they died, are they in hiding after losing out to electricity and cement, to air conditioners and televisions? Has life lost its playfulness and joy without the transformational powers of the jinn? Are life’s sweet moments of pleasure and delight no more, now the people are weighed down with daily chores, boring work, and all the routines apparently necessary for modern life? It seemed so, until Zubayda and seven friends, all mothers and wives overburdened with one thing after another, decide they have to somehow recover the powers of the lost female jinn. Zubayda collects together their vivid stories, revealing secrets until then suppressed, as on one special night every month they transform into Cinderellas and meet together in Chef Ramon’s restaurant on Muscat’s beach front. In her novel Omani author Huda Hamed confronts the challenges that people, particularly women, face as Muscat’s modernisation replaces old ways of living in this enchanting and modern take on the Cinderella tale. A group of women friends become jinn themselves in the guise of Cinderellas. Their individual stories reveal their innermost thoughts, thoughts they don’t and can’t share with their husbands and other family members or even neighbours. The stories of the Cinderellas unwittingly show the existence of two worlds, the public one with all its social restrictions, societal taboos, which they live with daily, and their own secret, untellable one in which they can break free and speak aloud their true opinions and feelings when they become the jinn Cinderellas.
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