Lit & Found: Samar Yazbek Talks ‘Planet of Clay’
“So when I wrote this novel it was like Odysseus returning to Ithaca. Yes, through writing the novel I returned to myself, and I think I am better as a result.”
Interviews
Egyptian Novelist Shady Lewis on Coptic Identity, Church-State Relations, and Citizenship
“In Ways of the Lord, Christians are mistaken for being Jews and are accused of spying for Israel, which demonstrates the lack of recognition of Copts and their conflation with other minorities.”
Storytellers of the 1001 Nights: A Conversation with Paulo Horta
“In English we have far fewer translations of the Nights than we might imagine.”
On Launching Liblib: A Children’s Publishing House for Arabic Dialects
By M Lynx Qualey Late last month, the new Liblib publishing house made their first public appearance on Facebook, with organizers announcing it as “The newest children’s publishing house on […]
Humphrey Davies and the ‘Tabloid Touch’ Demanded by Translating a 13th-century Charlatan
“He seems to me a truly in-between character – in between autodidact and man of letters, in between conman and upstanding citizen, in between chancer on the streets of Damascus and provincial court hanger-on in the provinces.”
Alexander Key: On Domesticating Al-Jurjani 110%
“I’m trying to translate al-Jurjani so that he sounds like a literary critic writing in English, writing in his native language. I don’t want the reader of al-Jurjani’s experience with metaphor to think this guy is foreign – because al-Jurjani didn’t think he was foreign.”
Novelist Eman Assad on Belonging and Identity in Kuwait
“Our identity was wholly attached [to our father’s], and a new duty was put in place, whereby you needed to express your loyalty to Kuwait. And how do you do that? By accepting the insulting names your country is called without objection.”
Miled Faiza and Karen McNeil, ‘On the Merits of Tunisian Literature’
“The few Tunisian novels which are available in translation made it into English thanks to the prizes that they won, or because of the curiosity the country attracted after the Arab Spring.”
Huda Fakhreddine: A Translator Must Have Something To Say About the Text
“Translation is first and foremost a critical reading. It must be motivated by having something to say about the text—not just transfer it from one language to another, which is impossible anyway.”