Classic Short Fiction: ‘Deducted from Official Budgetary Sources’
A classic office farce from Al-Sahhar’s collection “Being a Civil Servant,” published in 1944.
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Posts by Marcia Lynx Qualey:
Forthcoming November 2025: New Saudi Poetry, the Memoir of a Palestinian Communist, More
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.
A Syrian Masterclass in the Art of Being Human
Ten months and six days after the sudden fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime, DoppelHouse Press released Critical Conditions: My Diary of the Syrian Revolution, the eyewitness chronicles of nurse-turned-frontline-war-reporter Hadi Abdullah, ably translated by Alessandro Columbu.
‘Gaza, the Game the Elephant Swallows Every Time’
Writer Husam Maarouf returns to Deir al-Balah in what feels like the same displacement and return he experienced only months ago.
‘Llegir Palestina’: Making a Space to Read About Palestine
The book club “Llegir Palestina” (“Read Palestine” in Catalan) has been a success in Catalunya’s public libraries; next, organizers plan to offer workshops to library staff and volunteers on how to start up their own “Read Palestine” books clubs.
Hanan Issa, Writing After Nazik al Malaika
This poem was commissioned for the Voiced festival, highlighting global and local endangered languages through creativity; author Hanan Issa also talks here about her relationship with the poetry of Nazik al Malaika.
Inji Efflatoun’s ‘A Meeting at the Prosecutor’s Office’
This book was the subject of a recent episode of the BULAQ podcast; today, with permission, we bring you a section from the memoir soon after Inji Efflatoun meets her beloved husband Hamdi, who she was originally wary of — since he was a public prosecutor — although she is reassured he is actually “a committed Marxist.”
From Saga Hamdan’s ‘Red Light’
This is part of a longer story, “Maryam,” (2022) by Palestinian author Saga Hamdan.
2026 Neustadt Prize to Ibrahim Nasrallah
Yesterday evening, organizers announced the great Palestinian novelist and poet Ibrahim Nasrallah as the 29th laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.