"I don’t know how many hours I’d spent in solitary confinement. I was alone with four cold silent walls. I couldn’t hear anyone’s voice in that gloomy cell, and I don’t think anyone could hear me."
Bulaq Episode 40: ‘The Revolution While Dreaming’
The latest episode of Bulaq focused around a collection of interviews with Mahmoud Darwish, titled "Palestine as Metaphor."
AUC Press Seeking New Director
According to The Bookseller, American University in Cairo Press and Bookstores is looking for a new director.
Palestinian Sheikha Hussein Helawy Wins Almultaqa Prize for ‘Order C345’
Organizers of AlMultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story yesterday announced the winner of the 2019 prize was the collection "Order C345," by Palestinian writer Sheikha Hussein Helawy.
Born on This Day: 6 to Read by Ghalib Halasa
"With so much to explore in his 7 novels, dozens of short stories, and scads of genre-crossing nonfiction that feels so relevant to our present day hopes and wars, the door is there, we need simply to walk through it."
The Edwar al-Kharrat Memorial Library
When I visited the library years after last seeing Edwar, years after he passed away, it was thanks to Mohamed Shoair – a friend, author, and literary journalist at the weekly Akhbar al-Adab. Shoair was entrusted by Edwar’s son, Dr Ihab al-Kharrat, to safeguard and organize the manuscripts, papers, and books left in the library.
The Arabic Novel’s Contribution to Global Storytelling Styles: ‘Rama and the Dragon’
"What is important in the novel is not succession, but crystallization."
Edwar al-Kharrat: On Books and Writing
"After immigrating to Canada in 1998, and after the release of my second novel Heliopolis in 2000, the writer Hadya Said contacts me from London to offer that I write a joint novel with Edwar al-Kharrat."
Edwar al-Kharrat’s Library: A Hall of Magic and Wonders
"You could not ask al-Kharrat about an Egyptian writer, dead or alive, without him going to a small room – perhaps the balcony that he closed to carve out more space for his library one day – and take out some of his or her works with care and sensitivity, or works that even its author may have completely forgotten."
Edwar al-Kharrat: Without Maps
From our special section, edited and translated by Chihab El Khachab, on Edwar al-Kharrat and his library: By Montasser al-Kaffash My first encounter with Edwar al-Kharrat was in 1986, the year I graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University. I, along with a group of short story writers, contributed to publishing a stapled … Continue reading Edwar al-Kharrat: Without Maps
Edwar al-Kharrat… the Storytelling Eye
This viewpoint was that the stability of life lay in its capacity to change, in stitching the spread of weakness and strength together, not with the intention of achieving hegemony, but with a desire to look out for what is better, because things are not eternal and they erode to leave traces as the sole witnesses to them.
4-Book Shortlist for 2019 Banipal Translation Prize Announced
The £3,000 award is given annually for works "of imaginative and creative writing of literary merit and general interest."
