This winter, Librarians and Archivists with Palestine (LAP) is coordinating a new international reading campaign called “One Book, Many Communities.” It’s a shared book club across boundaries and borders, and will launch in January 2015 […]
Since their launch and expansion, the two big big book fairs in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have attracted the most attention from non-Arab publishers. But Cairo is now attempting to throw its hat into the ring with the city’s first-ever professional program.
Jabbour Douaihy’s novels have been acclaimed and awarded in the last few years, both in Arabic and in French translation. Now, with a new translation of his “June Rain” by Paula Haydar, one hopes the Lebanese author will begin attracting admirers in English, too.
Contributor Aisha K. Nasser explores the difference between Sonallah Ibrahim’s classic novel, Zaat, and the TV series it inspired, just as news comes that Ibrahim’s Sharaf (Honor) will also be coming to the screen.
The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) has helped fund, supply, and train staff at two libraries in Gaza. One saw damage when it was occupied by the Israeli military, and the other was entirely destroyed, the building where it was housed razed to the ground.
This past summer, as part of a workshop on “The Possibilitiies of Arab-Jewish Thought,” Najat Abdulhaq spoke about “Rethinking Narratives: The Emergence of the ‘Arab Jew’ in Contemporary Arabic Literature,” a talk recently posted to SoundCloud. Abdulhaq discusses the phenomenon and speculates about reasons behind this blossoming of new novels.
A back-and-forth with the author and translator of the witty, wild Women of Karantina (2013), released last month in excellent, gum-snapping English translation.
“Had the committee for the Nobel Prize decided at an earlier date than 1988 that recognition should be given to the renaissance that was occurring in modern Arabic literature, the prize would surely have been awarded to Tawfiq al-Hakim.”
The winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature will be revealed this Thursday. There’s no way of knowing who is on the Swedish Academy’s shortlist — at least not until the archives are opened up fifty years from now — but we do know who’s on the betting rolls.
