Librarians Pick: The Best Lebanese Children’s Books
Librarians in thirty different countries chose their favorite books for a project called “The World Through Picture Books.” The only Arab country that’s taken up the challenge (so far) is Lebanon:
Lit & Found
Leila Aboulela on Why She Loves Tayib Salih’s ‘The Wedding of Zein’
PEN American recently invited writers, including Sudanese-British novelist Leila Aboulela, to a “great book swap,” where they were to bring “just one beloved book originally written in a foreign tongue.”
Between Drama and Melodrama in Tarek Eltayeb’s ‘The Palm House’
From the Egypt Independent: Tarek Eltayeb’s “The Palm House” has the beginnings of a strong and important novel. For the first 160 pages, the Sudanese author’s second book goes roaring along. […]
A Google Doodle for May Ziadeh
Tell me, O tell me! by the planets that are above Who is the heavenly herald who is the dove That thrilled to our midst from yon horizon and sea […]
‘The Tattoo’ and Other Poems by Muhammad al-Maghut (to Consider on an Election Day)
Poet, essayist, and playwright Muhammad al-Maghut—called one of the revolutionaries of the (Arabic) free verse movement—was born in 1934 in Salamiya, Syria. According to Robin Yassin-Kassab over at Qunfuz, “Al-Maghut […]
To the Tyrants of the World
Who does not, this morning, have hope (and fear) for Tunisia on the brain?
I can’t say much for this anonymous Wikipedia translation of Tunisian poet Abo Al Qassim Al Shabbi’s (1909-1934) “To the Tyrants of the World,” but here it is:
Google Doodle Celebrates ‘Prince of Poets’ Ahmed Shawky
Relatively little English-language scholarship exists about Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawky, who was not only a significant poet and playwright (and song-writer), but also a social leader and anti-colonialist who was exiled from Egypt by the British for five years.
Laila al-Othman: Too Much Sex in New Saudi (Women’s) Lit
A couple weeks back, Kuwaiti novelist Laila al-Othman found an appreciative audience when she attacked a new strain of Saudi literature, penned by women, for its “increasingly sexual content.” According […]