Michel Moushabeck on Interlink Publishing @ 35: New Directions and Books as the ‘Highest Form of Hope’
“To a large part, we have managed to survive our stay-at-home period because we had books as our daily companions.”
Interviews
Muthaffar Al-Nawab as a Friend: A Talk with Dr. Aziz Shaibani
“He would read poetry, philosophy, history, or anything that he could lay his hands on. He was a friendly conversationalist and had a passion for engaging with people. Ah, and he was a first-rate visual artist as well.”
Chip Rossetti on How Mohamed Makhzangi’s ‘Animals In Our Days’ Displaces our Anthropocentric View of the World
“It’s a jarring, estranging view of our species, one that particularly suited to the genre of ecofiction: one of its hallmarks is that it aims to question or displace a traditional anthropocentric view of the world.”
Emad El-Din Aysha on ‘Arab and Muslim Science Fiction’: ‘Our male heroes aren’t criticized for crying’
“Our concerns lie elsewhere, whether it’s turning the deserts green or maintaining family values, or honoring religion. As Arabs especially, we love gardens and vines and family get-togethers in our mini-utopias. As Muslims, we have a much more holistic vision of the future, of what the future should look like.”
On Translating ‘Cry in a Long Night,’ a Novel Jabra Ibrahim Jabra Originally Wrote in English
“Would the original have sounded like Jabra’s English in Hunters in a Narrow Street, a product of the 1950s, in which the characters swoon and passionately exclaim ‘Darling!’? And if the original of Cry in a Long Night sounded like that, was I beholden to translating it back into such an idiom? Or did I owe my reader the language of 2022?”
Photos & Archives: Companions to Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s ‘Cry in a Long Night’
A few photos from Jabra’s archives, from 1940s Jerusalem, and the same sites now.
Khaled Nasrallah: Censorship is Not Exclusive to Kuwait; It’s a Global Issue
“But I didn’t decide to avoid setting The White Line of Night in Kuwait so that I could write freely and refer to anyone or anything without getting into trouble. Censorship is not exclusive to Kuwait; it is a global issue and it still exists in reality and practice even in the countries that theoretically nullified it.”
Mariam Qahtani on the Slow Process of Building ‘On Love and Isolation’
“I have what I like to call an “ideal” reader. I write for that reader. I wouldn’t be able to lift a pen if I had to think of every type of reader.”
‘A Song for Syria’: A Collection of Syrian Literature from Kolkata Publisher Odd Books
“A Song for Syria easily fits in with the #StayOdd moniker I have been using. Speaking/writing/painting in unconventional formats or expressing an unpopular opinions takes courage, and often a lot of silencing of that rational little person sitting in your brain, who’s been conditioned to be careful because of past trauma and experiences.”