World literary awards are plentiful, although credible, transparent, and interesting ones less so. The Mohamed Choukri Foundation, named for the celebrated Moroccan author, recently announced the establishment of one in Choukri’s name.
Oum Cartoon blogger Jonathan Guyer has a piece up at the Paris Review this week about “The Case of the Arabic Noirs.” In it, he argues that — in Egypt, at least — the crime novel might be coming back.
As translator and novelist Elliott Colla writes, Samih al-Qasim — who died on Tuesday — was identified primarily a poet. But he was also an essayist, a memoirist, and a letter-writer.
A few weeks ago, Nancy Linthicum and Michele Henjum announced the launch of CairoBookStop, a site that aims to assist scholars, book lovers, book buyers, book makers, and book sellers, connecting people with books.
“I don’t like you, death
But I’m not afraid of you”
Over at Mada Masr, Hadil Ghoneim has penned a fascinating short piece, trans. Amira Elmasry, about her impressions of US high school students reading and discussing Naguib Mahfouz’s classic “Midaq Alley.”
The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program (IWP) residency — the world’s oldest and largest multinational writing residency — will host another thirty to thirty-five authors this year, among them Saudi author Abdullah al-Wesali, Sudanese writer Sabah Sanhouri, and Egyptian poet, novelist, and translator Ahmed Shafie.
Gaza-based Theatre for Everybody and London-based Az Theatre are co-creating and co-producing “War and Peace in Gaza and London,” set for a Rich Mix debut at 4 p.m. on September 14.
There are a number of events that focus on Arab and Arabic literatures at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. Contributor Raphael Cormack attended two, and found that, “Where political analysis falls apart, literature and fiction can say something.”
