How was I to deal with this strange neighbor who, it seemed, was going to take my most precious possession: my solitude?
Iraqi Novelist Alaa Mashzoub Assassinated
Mashzoub was 50.
Inaam Kachachi: ‘What Hurts My People Hurts Me’
"But for me, it’s not necessary to put my hand in the fire to express its pain. What hurts my people hurts me."
No Endings for Maysloon Hadi’s ‘The Brotherhood of Mohammed’
"Orshina is a tiny unemployed woman in her thirties, who lost her right eye in an explosion and studied psychology. She lives with her mother and is delighted to discover that her favorite writer is going to be her neighbor."
PEN Finalists: Translations of Mikhail’s ‘The Beekeeper’ & Bouanani’s ‘The Shutters’
The winners will be celebrated at the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26 in NYC.
Luke Leafgren Wins 2018 Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation
"The author is fortunate to have found a translator totally in sympathy with his writing."
How Japanese Children’s Books Came to Mosul
They still need books, he said, particularly, "Science, architecture, arts, humanities, literature, knowledge, and children's books."
Book Review: Samir Naqqash’s ‘Tenants & Cobwebs’
This novel – Naqqash’s first – was published in Arabic in 1986, and draws on the author’s own life experiences. His family fled Iraq in 1951 when he was just 13. Unlike most other writers who left Baghdad’s once-thriving Jewish community for Israel, Naqqash continued to write in Arabic until his death in 2004.
5 Books: Remembering Jabra Ibrahim Jabra
In Baghdad, Jabra crafted both novels and poems, first composing in English and later shifting into Arabic.
Diaa Jubaili Wins 2018 Almultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story
According to the judges, the 'No Windmills in Basra' combined realism and fantasy in its often satiric depictions of war that includes stories set during "the Iraq-Iran war, the Gulf War, and the waves of extremism that engulf Iraq to this day."
Friday Finds: ‘Mosul, the City with Two Springs’
"I had learned from early childhood that Mosul was a city with two springs because autumn was like a second spring."
Shahad al-Rawi’s ‘The Baghdad Clock’ Wins Edinburgh Award
"The book was chosen -- by popular vote -- from among the 49 debut novels and short-story collections eligible for the 2018 prize."
