"It is not easy for me to summarize in these lines my emotional relationship — with all its fluctuations — with Raqqa!"
From the Archives: Muhammad Abdelnabi on Writing Queer Characters
"MA: To adopt the voice of any character is a challenge, but it’s easier if the character is closer to you. In my short stories, it was my voice, the character was like me. But for Hani Mahfouz our environment and social class is very different. I tried to forget about myself and speak like him."
Friday Finds: A Discussion of Ra’ad Abdulqadir’s ‘Except for This Unseen Thread’ with Mona Kareem & Sinan Antoon
On May 27, Kareem joined poet and novelist Sinan Antoon -- who has called Abdulqadir "a poet's poet" -- to discuss Except for This Unseen Thread.
From the Archives: Alexandra Chreiteh on Writing About Menstruation in Modern Standard Arabic
"And remember: talking about periods in fus7a is not insulting, because periods are not insulting!"
The Challenges (and Possibilities) of Translating Literary Scholarship
"And it’s not right for those conversations and insights to be documented only in English, a language that some of those same theatre-makers would find difficult to access, and not in Arabic."
‘A Poetics of Return’: Talking Migration and Return with Wessam Elmeligi
"If migration is not permanent, then what? Is there always some kind of return?"
Friday Finds: Kayfa Ta on ‘Shapeshifting Texts and Other Publishing Tactics’
In 2012, Ala Younis and Maha Maamoun founded Kayfa ta as an independent publishing initiative that "emerged from a need to break out of the limited readership and distribution of alternative books."
Today: Join Palestinian & South African Poets for ‘Writing is a Cultural Weapon’
"We feature South African writers reading the poetry and prose of Palestinian writers (with some hopefully joining us, subject to availability during these trying circumstances)."
Meet New Literary Agent Saliha Haddad
"In places where agents aren’t common, I think it will help reshape the publishing landscape, to make it more professional and ethical, and to allow serious authors to receive the representation they deserve."
‘All the Women Inside Me’: A Talk with Jana Elhassan and Michelle Hartman
"The most common thing between all of my characters, men and women, is pain. Some of them yield to it and let it shape them, and others are on the lookout for a breakthrough."
Humphrey Davies on Why ‘The Critical Case of K’ Isn’t ‘Your Woo-woo Cliché of Kafka’
"Humphrey Davies discusses how he came to the novel, why this isn't your woo-woo cliché of Kafka, and how coronavirus came to appear in a novel published in 2017."
From the Archives: Wajdi al-Ahdal and Katherine Hennessy on Yemeni Theater
"The Yemeni public loves writing laced with irony and sarcasm. And Yemeni readers understand when an author is directing barbs at those who deserve it, like religious leaders, the military and politicians."
