Two exciting short-story collections are forthcoming in 2014 from Comma Press, one of the leading publishers of the short arts, one from Gaza and another from Iraq a hundred years in the future.
There are two major bookstore chains inside Israel: Steimatzky and Tzomet Sfarim. Haaretz recently looked at why neither has “even a single branch in an Arab [Palestinian] city or in the large population centers of the Arab [Palestinian] society in Israel.”
Well, okay, you might.
The Katara Cultural Village has announced that the organization is set to launch a $200,000 award for Arabic novel.
I’m late to this, but the first ever Emirates Novel Award (@UAENovelAward) announced three finalists for its Best Short Novel (17,000 – 40,000 words) category last Thursday.
The Jan. 3 arson attack on the historic al-Saeh Library bookshop in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli — which destroyed thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of books and manuscripts — has galvanized support in Lebanon and worldwide.
Better late than never: ArabLit starts a global events calendar.
When Abdulaziz al-Farsi’s unusual but compelling Earth Weeps, Saturn Laughs appeared in English last year (trans. Nancy Roberts), it was one of the first Omani novels to find an audience in English. But Omani literature isn’t just hard to find in English, but in Arab countries as well.
Sharp, funny Palestinian writer Suad Amiry has won one of Italy’s Nonino prizes — along with Portugeuse novelist Antonio Lobo Antunes, Italian psychiatrist Giuseppe Dell’Acqua, and French philosopher Michel Serres — for “her work to promote peace.”
