"Speed is a reflex, second nature. When a driver is stuck in a traffic jam, his hand on the horn immediately takes over from his foot on the accelerator. It is less an attempt to move forward than a way of not giving up when everything is falling apart."
Sunday Submissions: 4th Khayrallah Prize
Deadline for submissions to this year's prize is August 31, 2019.
Jabbour Douaihy on ‘The King of India’
"The title doesn’t reflect the contents of the novel. I choose a title at random. There is no India in the novel, and no king."
5 Books by Etel Adnan, Born on This Day
"Time and fog escape our grasp." -Etel Adnan, #BOTD.
Friday Finds: Review & Excerpt from Hoda Barakat’s ‘The Night Post’
My darling mother, I write to you from the airport before they can take me, before I go through the security barrier.
Farewell to Beloved and Award-winning Novelist May Menassa, 80
She was among the first woman broadcasters in the early days of Lebanese TV and presented the “Women of Today” program.
Friday Finds: Elias Khoury and ‘The Eloquence of Silence’
"The novel is about the politics of telling and hearing, seeing and blindness, truth and the possibility of finding it. It is about the impossibility of linear stories, the problems of history,the power of fiction, and the many many registers of silence."
Wadih Saadeh Wins Argana Prize: 10 Celebratory Poems
The judges of this year's Argana Prize cited Saadeh's unique achievements and contribution to "bringing about a change in the path of the Arab prose poem."
In Photos: Memoir and Foundation Remembering Emily Nasrallah (1931-2018)
For those wishing to find out more about Nasrallah’s personal history, and also the history of a small village in southern Lebanon, 'Al Makan' is a perfect source.
Literary Playlist: Selim Batti’s ‘I’m Not Leaving My House’
"You will find many Fairuz songs in the playlist, which details the progression of the complex ideas and emotions evoked in the novel."
On Taking Beirut’s Bookoholics to 80,000 Readers & Beyond
"I tried to start a book club at the university, but it wasnʹt a priority to students or to the university. I then reached out online to readers residing in Lebanon and with steady baby steps, I was able to announce the first book club meeting on July 18, 2012, in a coffee shop in Hamra Street in Beirut."
maia tabet: Translation and Cooking, Context and Failure
"I'm very, very careful; there are ways that we say things in Arabic which if one were to translate them closely or literally would sound to an English ear as being either sectarian, or religious, or 'backwards,' if you want to put it that way."
