All You Need Is Comics & Algerian Love
ArabLit contributor Nadia Ghanem writes that “The sixth edition of the International Comic Strip Festival in Algiers (FIBDA) delivered just what I was looking for: Algerian Love.”
News
Are Gulf Cities the New Capitals of Arabic Literature?
Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi published a piece on Al Monitor, “Gulf Cities Emerge as New Centers of Arab World” which he said, in a public Facebook post, was “controversial even before publishing it.”
Tawfiq al-Hakim and the ‘True Birth of the Arabic Novel’
Today is the birthday of Tawfiq al-Hakim, who was not just was not just Egypt’s could-have-been Nobel laureate (he died in 1987, a year before Mahfouz won the prize), he was a wild innovator, a player, a wit, and — according to Mahfouz — the true genitor of the (modern) Arabic novel.
Video: Rabai Madhoun Speaks About ‘The Lady from Tel Aviv’
Sarah Irving covered Raba’i Madhoun’s July talk about his novel The Lady from Tel Aviv for ArabLit. But for those who want to see more, the Arab British Centre has just posted a video of the event.
Eight Titles Longlisted for 2013 ‘Prix de la Jeune Litterature Arabe’
Late last week, Jean-Luc Lagardère and the Arab World Institute Foundation announced the eight titles on the shortlist for the first ever ‘Prix de la Jeune Litterature Arabe’: To be […]
Open Call (in Cairo): Arabic Digital Book Expression Program
A number of you have asked about this. So, if you’re in Cairo, “The International Media Network Services for Human Rights (IMNS4HR, Sweden) and Townhouse, Cairo have joined efforts to offer The Arabic Digital Book Expression Program, a series of workshops focusing on creating Arabic digital books.”
‘Ghilafaat’: The Relationship Between a Book and Its Cover
This summer, Jessamy Klapper began blogging the Arabic books entering Columbia’s library system. “Ghilafaat” has only grown since then, adding books and an Instagram component. Klapper answered a few questions about the project for ArabLit.
How To Foster Multilingualism in Algeria?
The “Algerian manga” post from earlier in the week sparked a discussion about language and script between @AzzeddineCh and @ayatghanem to which I was the third wheel. As long as I was listening in, I thought I’d share.
Cross-reading the Medieval
The introduction to Issue 5 of Spolia magazine quotes Yale professor Fred Robinson, who said (disapprovingly) that medieval “is most often used in Modern English simply as a vague pejorative term meaning ‘outmoded’, ‘hopelessly antiquated’, or even simply ‘bad.'”