“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.”
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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?”
Read morePhotos & 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.
Read moreKhaled 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.”
Read moreMariam 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.”
Read more‘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.”
Read moreMohsine Loukili: I Do Not Use the Novel to Serve History, But History to Serve the Novel
“History is important with regard to the novel, as is philosophy, for example, but in the end, it is nothing more than a tool, a means that the novel harnesses to serve artistic, aesthetic, and humanist purposes.”
Read moreA Talk with Seif Eddine Nachi About ‘Une Révolution Tunisienne’
We have chosen to publish in standard Arabic because probably, if the comic were in Tunisian Arabic, no one would read it. People don’t seem interested in the Tunisian dialect—I get the impression that they switch off their brains as soon as you start speaking Tunisian. The aim is for this work to be red outside Tunisia.
Read moreThings You May Find Hidden in My Ear: A Conversation with Mosab Abu Toha
“When writing in Arabic, it’s often about the past, my grandfather and home, or it’s about statelessness and alienation. It’s about our dilemma as human beings.”
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