“Teens need to read about what they care about most, which is love and relationships, and we, as writers, are not permitted to go near that area, or at least we cannot be as honest and realistic as we should or would like to be.”
Last year’s Prix Goncourt — France’s most prestigious literary award — went to Moroccan writer Leila Slimani for her Chanson Douce. Why this novel? What work does this prize do? […]
Ahmed Saadawi’s 2015-prize-winning ‘Frankenstein in Baghdad’ is also forthcoming early next year, translated by Jonathan Wright.
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction announced its 2017 longlist this morning. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that women make up a majority of the judging panel, which is chaired by internationally acclaimed novelist Sahar Khalifeh.
According to organizers, we can look for the sixteen-book longlist and names of the five judges around 9 a.m. GMT. Meanwhile, ArabLit throws out twenty guesses.
“The subject? Beirut, Antoine Kerbage, Mohammad el Maghout, theatre, the 70’s, an unpublished manuscript, the arabs, the golden age of Lebanese artistic scene, all mixed with some autobiography (because otherwise it wont be fun).”
“As usual I sat at the front, close to the blackboard because I’m short-sighted, and to the left, so the teacher’s body wouldn’t hide what he wrote.”
“Jonathan Wright’s seamless English rendering does full justice to the original, exhibiting a sureness of touch that fully captures the spirit of the Arabic version.”
In the main, Aswat will focus on literary news updates, profiles, essays, and reviews. “We will work basically in Arabic and English, but we will add other languages in later stages,” Salah Eldein said.
