As publication dates often slip — and new books surface — we try to have a glance at what’s really (to the best of our knowledge) coming in translation from Arabic at the start of each month. If you have more books to add, please let us know.
From the publisher:
ArabLit Quarterly’s SYRIA: FALL OF ETERNITY is a wide-ranging, 300-page, full-color exploration of Syrian literature that looks at what’s happening on the Syrian literary scene during this period of intense transformation.
As co-editors Ghada Alatrash and Fadi Azzam write, “It is no easy task to tell the Syrian tale, one that is written—and still being written—in the midst of both darkness and light. Yet, Syrian literature and art have taken up this task: not only to record events threatened by historical erasure, but to transform a time stained with blood into an anthem of resistance. … In every text, every poem, every work of art, there is a brave confession: freedom is not granted—it is seized; it is seized with love, with words, with color, and with a deep conviction that all humans deserve to be free.”
Includes work by Samar Yazbek, Mamdouh Azzam, Maha Hassan, Fawwaz Haddad, Iyad Shaheen, Rima Bali, Dima Wannous, and many more.
We’ll have more on this issue tomorrow.
From the publisher:
This powerful novel traces the intertwined lives of four generations of Lebanese women, using their personal losses and resilience to reflect the collective pain of a nation scarred by war, patriarchy, and displacement. Through Asmahan’s effort to recover and honor these silenced histories, Iman Humaydan crafts a moving testament to memory, survival, and the hope of breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma.
We’ll have an excerpt and a discussion with Iman and Michelle coming up in March.
The Raven of Ruwi and Other Stories from Oman, by Hamoud Saud, tr. Zia Ahmed, foreword Jokha Alharthi (Syracuse University Press, March 18, 2026)
In this lyrical collection, Omani author Hamoud Saud invites readers into the soul of Muscat, the capital city of Oman, a country famed for its long coastline, rugged mountains, and stark desert landscapes. This geography provides the backdrop for stories that reveal both the beauty and hardship of a country and people on the margins. Saud’s Muscat is not a postcard-perfect city but a living, breathing place of cement forests, forgotten roundabouts, and ravens perched on bank flagpoles. In “The Raven of Ruwi,” a narrator wanders the city’s commercial district where Indian music drifts from balconies and the streets are filled with weary bank workers. In “The Sad Donkey of Muscat,” a blind man recounts the city’s history as told to him by a donkey. And in “Post Office of the Dead,” a forgotten postmaster receives letters from Dostoevsky and Kafka, triggering a surreal unraveling of time and identity. These stories are fabulist in spirit but grounded in the textures of everyday life: the scent of karak tea, the chatter of schoolgirls, the heat rising from asphalt. Through them, Saud explores themes of displacement, nostalgia, and the erasure of memory in the face of rapid urbanization. At once intimate and expansive, The Raven of Ruwi and Other Stories from Oman is a powerful meditation on place, identity, and the stories that cities tell.
Mariam, It’s Arwa, by Areej Gamal, tr. Addie Leak (AUC Press, March 24, 2026)
It is during the 2011 Egyptian revolution that Arwa and Mariam meet in a subway station near Cairo University. Arwa has returned from Germany to join the protests, and their chance encounter is to change the course of Mariam’s sheltered existence. They tell each other the stories of their mothers and grandmothers, the histories that have brought them to this point. Mariam was born in Saudi Arabia, and first set foot in Egypt after both her parents were killed in a car accident. Arwa’s mother also died a tragic, early death, and she, traveling in the opposite direction as Mariam, left Egypt to escape. This is a mesmerizing and otherworldly debut novel about finding salvation and finding oneself, despite the anguish and traumas of the past. It pivots on the present moment of Arwa and Mariam’s unexpected union, and at its heart is a recognition of the women who came before them.
A Mask the Color of the Sky, by Bassem Khandaqji, tr. Addie Leak (Europa, March 17, 2026)
Nur, a young Palestinian refugee from a camp near Ramallah, is often mistaken for an Ashkenazi Jew. Fluent in Hebrew and with a degree in archaeology, he dreams of freedom beyond the fences of the camp—and of writing a novel about Mary Magdalene based on the Gnostic Gospels. When he discovers an Israeli ID card in the pocket of a secondhand coat, he assumes a false identity and is hired for an archaeological dig near Megiddo. Passing as an Israeli, he moves through a world previously off-limits, gaining insight into the lives and beliefs of those he’s been taught to see as enemies.
But as Nur’s borrowed identity deepens, so does the rift within: between Nur, the Palestinian, and “Ur,” the Israeli. By exploring this internal conflict, unfolding alongside friendships and love affairs, Bassem Khandaqji offers a meditation on the personal toll of occupation and the elusive desire to belong somewhere—fully, honestly, and without fear.