Fadwa Tuqan: ‘The Last Flower atop Memory’s Stone’
“The poem itself exemplifies a spirit—uncommon neither for the time nor for the magazine’s cohort—that struggled to break free from past delusions and memories, despite their seductive pull.”
![Left to right) Khālidah Sa‘īd, Nāzik al-Malā’ikah, Fadwa Ṭūqān, and Salma Jayyusi.[1] [1] Image from Shi‘r 4, no. 1 (1960). Credit Princeton University Libraries.](https://arablit.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Left-to-right-Khalidah-Sa‘id-Nazik-al-Malaikah-Fadwa-Ṭuqan-and-Salma-Jayyusi.1-1-Image-from-Shi‘r-4-no.-1-1960.-Credit-Princeton-University-Libraries.jpg "Left to right) Khālidah Sa‘īd, Nāzik al-Malā’ikah, Fadwa Ṭūqān, and Salma Jayyusi.[1] [1] Image from Shi‘r 4, no. 1 (1960). Credit Princeton University Libraries.")
Country Focus
New Poetry after Darwish: ‘In Praise of What Is No Longer Ours’
The great twentieth-century poet Mahmoud Darwish was born on this day in 1941. Today, author-translator Alaa Alqaisi shares a letter to Darwish and a poem, after Darwish’s “In Praise of the High Shadow.”
‘Can We Get in Touch with You?’ Short Fiction by Mai Al-Maghribi
In this short fiction by Mai Al-Maghribi, the narrator has dreams of art but doesn’t have the connections and gets dragged into an uncle’s tannery business.
New Short Fiction: ‘A Funeral of Butterflies’
“Do words and laughter melt, the way images melt in memory?” Short fiction about life and death by Sudanese author Mona Mohamed Saleh.
New Short Fiction: ‘Evil in My Bag’
In Aya Chalabee’s “Evil in My Bag,” a girl comes of age while Iraq is under US occupation and has to contend with a changing landscape, a strange soldier, and a gigantic crow.
From Mohamed N.M. Ali’s ‘The Call of Stillness’
These two poems, from Mohamed N.M. Ali latest collection, “نداء السكون” (The Call of Stillness), search for a self and selfhood “in the evening of oblivion.”
New Poetry in Translation: Anas al-Ghouri’s ‘Dream-Drenched Theft’
Here, Syrian poet Anas al-Ghouri reflects back on “wish-filled pockets” and the shoes that would reclaim childhood from want.
Remembering Iraqi Novelist Mahmoud Saeed
FEBRUARY 4, 2025 — Prolific Iraqi novelist Mahmoud Saeed, who moved to Chicago in 1999 but continued to write about Iraq throughout his life, often boldly, died last week after […]
Rawaa Sonbol on Being a Writer in Syria Today
Rawaa Sonbol is a Syrian author of short fiction, theater, and children’s literature. She has published three short story collections: The Tongue Hunter (2017), which received the Sharjah Award for […]