Sunday Submissions: Libyan Wanderer
Malak al-Taeb has opened up calls for submissions to her blog ‘Libyan Wanderer’.
Libya
Kneading Words: Mohammed Alnaas on Bread, Writing, and the Stuff of Language
“With time, I came to the conclusion that bread-baking as a creative act resembles the art of writing in many ways that might not be obvious to the untrained eye. And that the similarities become clearer with practice, and by persevering with the act of creation and creativity.”
New Fiction in Translation: Azza Maghur’s ‘Mowgli and Shere Khan’
It’s not a jungle, it’s a city, but not any city, it’s the capital. He’s not “Mowgli”—his name is Ihab. As for “Shere Khan,” he’s nothing but an animal. This story takes place in Tripoli. As I write it, I won’t be telling you about the Tripoli that I’ve lived in for half a century; I’ll tell you stories about the war that’s devouring it.
Winner of 2019 ArabLit Story Prize: ‘The Sharp Bend at Al-Bakur’
“The story suggests that the innocent dead were sacrificed for the vanity of those in power and those who seek it.”
‘A Giant Multi-room Museum Piece’: Ibrahim al-Koni’s ‘The Fetishists’
“Yet if al-Koniʹs shorter ‘Bleeding of the Stone’ and ‘Gold Dust’ are small paintings you can hang on a living-room wall, then The Fetishists is a giant multi-room museum piece.”
Najwa Binshatwan: It’s Time for Libyan Writers to Prove Themselves
“Often, readers tell me I should write about one subject or another, and I don’t like this sort of relationship, where readers approach the writer as though they’re a machine or a mythical creature.”
Poet Farrah Fray: ‘Libya as a Landscape is Disappearing’
“I began thinking about the sanctity of Arabic and the way it is used to justify certain ideologies or concepts which many Libyans don’t agree with. Gaddafi made Arabic Libya’s standard language, and with it not only marginalized Libya’s indigenous people but also justified a newly established regressive way of living.”
Neza Bozic on Translating Hisham Matar’s ‘The Return’: ‘The Most Intense Literary Work I Have Ever Done’
“This is undoubtedly the most intense literary work I have done in my ten year career as a translator.”
Review: Alessandro Spina’s ‘Confines of the Shadow’
This review was meant to be published two years ago, but the magazine that requested it went dark. So here, to accompany our piece on the crowdfunding campaign for the […]