Kalamna Phonics for Young Readers: ‘It Was Simply a Revelation’
” I was blown away with their creativity and ingenuity, and the sheer talent of the illustrators who brought the books to life with their wonderful illustrations.”
Interviews
For #WorldKidLit Month: 10 Tips for Purchasing Arabic Children’s Literature for Libraries
“! Look for publishers who have information in English, but also use translation tools so as not to miss publishers who only have information in Arabic.”
Searching for the Funambulists: Lisa Marchi on Women Poets of the Arab Diaspora
“This is an art that is not meant for the elites, it is meant for the people in the streets. People, I should add, who are perhaps a bit disheartened but still alert, and whose gaze is not fixed on the ground but looks up towards the sky.”
#WiTMonth Podcasts: Poetry and More with Iman Mersal
Meanwhile, in an August episode of the new podcast MAQSOUDA, co-hosted by Farah Chamma and Zeina Hashem Beck, the host-poets discuss Mersal’s «فكرة البيوت», or “The Idea of Houses.”
Haifa Zangana on Translation as Revisiting the Past
“At the time of writing the novella, I was preoccupied with a question: Is there is free will? Naturally, this question led to others: And how does it fit in a socially controlled life? How can individuals who arrived to London, not by choice, escape the new constraints?”
Sahar Khalifeh: ‘I Am A Committed Writer, Or Maybe I Am An Obsessed Writer’
“I am a committed writer or maybe I am an obsessed writer. I am obsessed by occupation because I live it. I witness the atrocities of occupation. I witness and live through those atrocities and still am living them.”
‘On Fiction’s Uneaten Meals’: A Talk with Donia Kamal
” Cooking is a central way in which the narrator feels; it reflects her state of mind and how she perceives the events and people around her. So it was more important for me to write about the process of making the food rather than about people eating it.”
Summer Re-runs: On Turning ‘Sayyidat al-Qamr’ into ‘Celestial Bodies’ and the Tyranny of the New
“Oh!! Titles… sometimes I think I stress over titles – and opening sentences – for more hours than I spend on the rest of the translation.”
Humphrey Davies and the ‘Tabloid Touch’ Demanded by Translating a 13th-century Charlatan
” In a world of where everyone from gormless mark to greedy king is ready to believe his dreams long before he believes his eyes, al-Jawbari keeps his beady gaze trained on the trickster’s hand, not his mouth.”