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The prize he helped fund, and which is named for him, is now in its twenty-second year, and will be announced later today. 

These short sentences don′t appear on the page as a block. Instead, they′re arranged in a cat-shaped poem, sneaking around after the reader. Here as elsewhere, the book doesn′t focus on plot, but on atmosphere. And what we learn about Bab El Louk is always partial, distant, askance.

He went out to get something to eat and was struck that the streets were empty and the cars in their places, cold and lifeless. The shop was closed and the traffic lights blinked on and off, changing their colors, in a conversation with no one.

“Specifically, Arabic is a language that’s somewhat unreachable from the community that we have built so far and we’ve received a number of extremely interesting Arabic submissions since localizing into the Arbaic language. We’re reviewing those now.”

Seventeen recommended literary gifts for everyone on your list, ages 5 – 105.

In the words of critic Ahmed Salah Eldein,”when in Cairo, you have to see the storytelling icon Mekkawi Said. He is a master of the antihero and has a pool of human secrets to reveal, all of which are Egyptian in flavor and human in essence.”

“Defeat is another thing I’m very interested in. How do you exist in this world with a heritage of defeat? What does that do to you? Can you fashion a new victorious self out of that or are we doomed by the defeats of our fathers?”

“[I]n recognition of the exquisite narrative techniques they employ in their creative texts and their ability to create narratives that are responsive to the changes of reality and which reflect the deepest thoughts and feelings of the human self.”

“The captain was well aware of the battle taking place in Saed’s mind and he intensified his assault, switching between encouragement and threats. Saed braced himself, finding ways to keep his body moving, choking back the breakfast that was surging up from his stomach toward his mouth.”