News

“Although translations of grown-ups’ Arabic literature have seen a sharp uptick in the last two decades, translations of Arabic children’s literature have not.”

“According to photographer Ali Y. Al-Baroodi, who tweeted from the festival, 7000 books were given to the crowds, and 6000 to the library, now being rebuilt.”

“I’d never imagined Iraq that way and it was as if the other writers just opened up a new portal into Iraq for me, and it was kind of exciting.”

A wide range of literary works, translated from Arabic to English, are forthcoming this fall.

Yesterday, PEN International issued a statement expressing they are “deeply concerned” for the authors’ safety.

“In both my fiction and my academic writing, I have long been interested in the mutually constitutive roles of ruler and ruled. I am intent on exploring how this manipulates people’s fates, and am determined to resist the ways it reshapes their understanding of the world.”

“One thing I want to add to that is that ‘Cigarette Number Seven,’ in dealing with the unfinished dream of one woman, is mainly about the idea that everything – experiences, emotions, attempts to change the world— moves in cycles that never reach a clear end or resolution. There can be a lot of pain in that.”

“And if their bodies recover, will their souls do the same?”

“A shrewd observer of her world and the environment she grew up in, Hayek’s characters are realistic, funny, and exasperating. We may not always like them, but we can’t blame them for being themselves.”