The festival, which will take place on the University of Oklahoma campus from October 29 – November 1, will spotlight Palestinian-American novelist Naomi Shihab Nye, who is set to receive the $25,000 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature.
This past week, both the Dubai-based Emirates LitFest (March 4-8 2014) and the Sharjah Book Fair (November 6-16 2013) released their programs; both of which are filled with big literary names.
Alice Kloker went to the recent London talk “From Sindbad to Sci-Fi: Reimagining Arab Science Fiction” and shares her impressions.
Novelist Muhammad Aladdin — one Akhbar Al-Adab’s “Writers of the New Millennium” and of the Millions’ “Six Egyptian Writers You Don’t Know But You Should” — answered a few questions about the relationship between the State and the Writer soon after one of the guiding lights of Egyptian literature, publisher Mohammed Hashem, announced that he intends to leave Egypt.
In May, author Karam Saber was sentenced — in absentia — to five years in prison for alleged defamation of religion in his short-story collection أين الله (Where is God). Following protests from at least 46 Arab human-rights organizations, the case appeared again in mid-September, but was deferred until an October 22 hearing.
The video began circulating on Wednesday: A talk by novelist Alaa al-Aswany at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris was suddenly derailed by chanting protestors getting up on chairs, shouting, breaking glass.
Ben East of The National interviewed 2015 Man Booker International judge Wen-chin Ouyang, professor of Arabic and comparative literature at SOAS, about whether she might be waving the flag for Arab writers over the next two years.
Le Figaro raised the question, and some possible answers.
On Saturday Octoer 19, starting at 3 p.m., the Boston Palestine Film Festival will present “Palestinian Narratives Across Genres,” featuring short films, readings by novelist and poet Susan Abulhawa, and a roundtable on Palestinian narrative.
