Award-winning Short Fiction: Raja Alem’s ‘The Boa’
” I spat out all the womb’s waters that were stagnant within my chest, and then waited for their despair.”
Fiction
An Excerpt from Eman Assad’s ‘No Sun in the Closed Room’
“And oh, he was so ready to see the look on his uncle’s face once he realized his magic wand had betrayed him.”
New Fiction: ‘The Last Stop’ by Hany Ali Said
“I walk up “the bridge,” which is the name I’ve given to the entrance hall in my uncle’s home, because it’s higher than the other rooms.”
New Short Fiction: Salwa Al Neimi’s ‘Angels’
“Perhaps what attracts you in the beginning is what repels you at the end.”
Read Mustafa Taj Aldeen Almosa’s ArabLit Story Prize-winning ‘How Kind They Are,’ Tr. Maisaa Tanjour & Alice Holttum
“They arrested me yesterday evening. The patrol head greeted me in his own way, and I was very surprised: instead of shaking my hand, he warmly shook my face with his fist, causing one of my teeth to fly from my mouth and land on the street.”
#TranslateThis: Haya Saleh’s YA Novel ‘Wild Poppies’
“The whole place was covered in rubble, and the rubble filled up my heart.”
New Fiction: An Excerpt from Abeer Esber’s ‘Free Fall’
“So here I am now, Yasmina, my mother’s daughter, returning home just as she did — after years that flowed like a mighty river between the two returns.”
Judges Choose Inventive, Varied Shortlist for 2021 ArabLit Story Prize
ArabLit is delighted to announce that this year’s judges selected five stories for the shortlist of the 2021 ArabLit Story Prize, by five writers from four countries: Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco.
New Fiction: Eisa Al-Hilo’s ‘Two Old Ones in a Tree’
“In the end, they were like two birds perched in the tree. They stood behind the window and looked at the garden, which grew wider and wider to include the whole scene, where the old ones’ inner monologue ran like rushing water in the spaces of the evening, with senility’s trembling echoes.”