“‘Sultana’ is Ghalib Halasa’s last and most autobiographical novel.”
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BCLT Research Seminar with Michael Cooperson – French Word Games, “Untranslatable” Arabic, and Global English
Al-Hariri’s Impostures is a twelfth-century collection of fifty tales written entirely in rhyme. Because of the rhyme, not to mention the riddles, puns, lipograms, and rare vocabulary, it has routinely […]
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Review: ‘The Unmaking of the Arab Intellectual’
“She takes issue with how literary contributions by Saudi female writers have been dismissed as belonging to a ‘chick-lit genre’ by offering a rereading of Saudi novelist Seba al-Herz’s ‘The Others.’ She invites us to think of the work as a critique of ‘secular nationalism and the secular-nationalist intellectual, which have hitherto framed the Arabic literary canon.'”
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On the Anniversary of Jurji Zaydan’s Birth, that Bad Bitch Shajar al-Dur and 5 More
“Shajar al-Dur was the wife of a 13th century Ayyubid sultan based in Cairo. When he died unexpectedly, she pretended he was still alive, presided over the defeat of the 7th Crusade, and then had herself named Sultana. But no Top 10 singles, sadly.”
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50 Great Lebanese Novels and a 5-Book Starter Kit
The excellent indie press Archipelago sent out a note yesterday saying that, to celebrate “the 70th anniversary of Lebanon’s liberation from colonial rule, Archipelago Books is happy to announce that all of Elias Khoury’s books will be on sale for 60% off the original cover price, including e-books.” You just need to check out with the code “khoury70.” Where should you start with Khoury? Where should you go from there? Well.
Read moreNew Year’s Resolution: How to Get Started with Arabic Literature
Often enough, I hear from new readers that ArabLit is just “too much,” and that the site lacks a good entry point for the reader who wants to know: Where do I start?
Read moreHow Jurji Zaidan (Finally) Came to English
This week in Qantara, I have a piece about the historical novels of Jurji Zaidan. Here’s a bit from the middle: “George [Zaidan] came to me about five years ago,” Arabic literature […]
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Arabic Literature, Malayalam Readers
Abu Dhabi-based translator S.A. Qudsi has translated a wide range of Arab authors — Nawal al-Saadawi, Ghada Samman, Naguib Mahfouz, Salwa Bakr, Ghassan Kanafani, Najwa Barakat — into Malayalam. He also translates from English, Indonesian, and Farsi. He answered a few questions about the Arabic-Malayalam relationship for our Arabic Literature, World Readers series.
Read more‘A Banquet for Seaweed’ Finally Coming to English: Read an Excerpt
One of the Syrian novelist Haidar Haidar’s most important works — and certainly his most controversial — A Banquet for Seaweed — is nearing the end of a long translational journey with scholar-translator Allen Hibbard and poet-translator-publisher Osama Esber.
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