If there is a single author who should be associated with contemplation of the relationship between humanity and the desert, and the desert and creative writing — post-Ibn Khaldun — it is Libyan novelist Ibrahim al-Koni. He recently spoke with the Louisiana Channel in an interview titled “In the desert we visit death.”
In his latest book, A Rare Blue Bird that Flies with Me — shortlisted for this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) — Moroccan writer Youssef Fadel takes the reader on a vividly imaginative odyssey through a dark period in Morocco’s history. Al-Mustafa Najjar talked to the author
Now in its third year, the Erbil International Literature Festival has been renamed NINITI, after a Sumerian healing goddess, to reflect 2014’s focus on women writers.
I get it: We moderns like lists. The six inhabited continents are messy, big, and multilingual places (yes, even Australia), and we would like the events therein to be curated.
Al-Mustafa Najjar continues with his interviews of authors shortlisted for the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, discussing Inaam Kachachi’s novel Tashari with its author.
Robert Allison is right: The desert is a fertile ground for novelists: “Not only in the otherworldliness of the landscape but also for its capacity to act as an existential sounding board for characters; such vast expanses of emptiness naturally encouraging introspection and reflection.” Yet his list of the “top 10 novels of desert war” focuses oddly on English-language narratives.
The Best Translated Book Award has announced the 10 finalists for its 2014 Best Translated Book Award (BTBA). Both Lebanese novelist Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s Leg Over Leg, trans. Humphrey Davies, and Moroccan writer Mahi Binebine’s Horses of God, trans. from the French by Lulu Norman, have made the list.
At 6 p.m. tomorrow, the new experimental, trilingual “Makhzin” will launch its first issue in Beirut. Editor Mirene Arsanios answered a few questions about the project.
The work of Moroccan novelist Abdelrahim Lahbibi was little-known before his third novel, “The Journeys of ’Abdi, Known as the Son of Hamriya,” made it onto this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) shortlist. Al-Mustafa Najjar talked to the author about his sudden shift into the spotlight.
