"Itâs important to emphasize that the interventions poets make in political debates take the form of poems: they donât slot abstract dogmas into verse molds. Noâthey actually think in poetry. "
Why Translation Is Like Cooking & More from maia tabet
"For me itâs a little bit like cooking; people say, âif youâre following a recipe then youâre not creating anything.â I donât agree; you are creating something, youâre creative even if youâre following a recipe."
From the Archives: A Cookbook from Cairo’s Flourishing 14th Century
"Kanz al-FawÄĘžid is unique for its variety and comprehensive coverage of contemporary Egyptian cuisine."
From the Archives: Shahla Ujayli on Getting Raqqa Back Through Writing
"It is not easy for me to summarize in these lines my emotional relationship â with all its fluctuations â with Raqqa!"
From the Archives: Muhammad Abdelnabi on Writing Queer Characters
"MA: To adopt the voice of any character is a challenge, but itâs 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. Â 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 itâs 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?"