“You’re welcome, oppressed women everywhere.”
Lebanese
Review: Alawiya Sobh’s Feminist Frisson in ‘Maryam, Keeper of Stories’
“If there were a light inside my belly and I could look up my hole, I would check for you if it’s a boy or a girl and let you know!”
Selections from 3 Poems by Today’s Google Doodled Poet, Translator, and ‘Shi’r’ Co-founder Ounsi el-Hajj
“Help me
Let there be in me all poets
Because the charge is greater than my two hands”
Renaissance in Four Voices: Four Women Writers Celebrated in Beirut
“He shifted about, lifted his head tepidly, and pitched it inside my neck, whispering that I was his feral cat, roaming city streets leading to the sea, wandering in the rain through the mud and the biting cold, and coming back to him at night wet, hungry, and in search of warmth.”
‘Living Together in Spite of Our Differences’: A Talk with Amin Maalouf
“History does not say who we are by itself—we make it say that. Historical events are the clay that we shape according what we need, think, and believe.”
Musical Group Mashrou’ Leila Banned from Jordan, Allegedly for Endorsing ‘Gender Equality and Sexual Freedom’
“We denounce the systemic prosecution of advocates of sexual and religious freedom.
“We denounce the censorship of artists anywhere in the world.”
Rabee Jaber’s Must-read ‘Confessions,’ in Gorgeous English Translation
“Instead, there is cake.”
Lebanese-Brazilian Author’s ‘Cup of Rage’ Longlisted for 2016 Man Booker International
“‘A Cup of Rage’ is set on the farm of an immigrant Lebanese family in Brazil.”
‘Congratulations to Lebanese Publishing’: On the 2016 International Prize for Arabic Fiction:
“[O]ut of the six Arabic novels selected for the ‘Arabic Booker’ shortlist, five were published in Lebanon.”
5 in Translation by 2015 Naguib Mahfouz Medal Winner Hassan Daoud
“From my window the sand made lustrous by the moonlight is clear and close as if its surface has risen toward me. The light of the moon carries the sand almost to meet me.”
Hassan Daoud Wins 2015 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for ‘No Road for Paradise’
“Its mastery is in its slow, meticulous, stagnant narration, but it is a stagnation that serves a purpose and is the writer’s means to evoke the boring empty life devoid of any form of self-fulfillment led by this unhappy imam.”
Hassan Daoud Accepting the 2015 Naguib Mahfouz Medal: ‘The Picture of a Man of Religion Was Not Attractive to Me’
“During the 1970s, when my father was in his mid-forties, he announced to me his fear that the numbers of men of religion would diminish.”
