A Look Back at ArabLit: March 2026
A look back at March 2026 in Arabic literature and translation.
mlynxqualey
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Posts by Marcia Lynx Qualey:
On the Field of Arabic Studies
Translator-scholar Jonas Elbousty talks with Roger Allen about his journey in the field of Arabic Studies.
New Poetry in Translation: ‘Who Am I?’
“Who am I? / I am not myself.”
Translation and Solidarity in Times of Imperial Mass Violence
In this “BETWEEN TWO ARABIC TRANSLATORS” conversation, Yasmeen Hanoosh and Elliott Colla look into two dimensions of translation, which Colla calls the solidaristic and the hegemonic, and the particular role translation has played in the US military.
New Poetry: Maha Al Aswad’s ‘Death in Six Images’
“They walk beneath the sky. As their arms extend. As they grow new arms. As they carry their children.’
From Saïd Khatibi’s ‘I Resist the River’s Course’
Saïd Khatibi’s I Resist the River’s Course — on the shortlist for the 2026 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF), with a winner set to be announced online April 9 — chronicles half a century of Algerian history, from the Second World War to the early 1990s.
From Ghazi Algosaibi’s ‘Abu Shalakh, the Chameleon’
“Abu Shalakh, the Chameleon” is a 2002 fantastical, satirical novel by Ghazi Algosaibi (1940-2010) in which the Saudi literary giant and politician recounts the history of the Kingdom and its global entanglements through Abu Shalakh, a lovable liar, unreliable storyteller, and self-proclaimed “truth-teller.”
Classic Short Fiction: ‘The Crown of Disgrace’
“He did not say goodbye when he rose to leave.”
Memories of Diminishment
On a review that nearly didn’t happen.