Which Arab Authors Are in the ‘Running’ for This Year’s Nobel Lit Prize?
If we can trust the Ladbrokes betting odds — and I’d imagine that we can’t — it’s more or less the same authors as last year.
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Abdellatif Laâbi: 11 Moroccan Writers Who Should Be Translated into English
I am not sure how, but I missed this wonderful interview Christopher Schaefer conducted with Abdellatif Laâbi when it came out on The Quarterly Conversation this June. You should read it in its entirety, but I’ll just pull out Laâbi’s list of 10 under-translated Moroccan writers.
Against the Odds, a Generation of Egyptian Readers
Over at Mada Masr, Asmaa Abdallah reviews Popular Culture in the Middle East and North Africa: A Postcolonial Outlook. One of the chapters features commentary by translator and scholar Richard Jacquemond who discusses, in “The Yacoubian Building and Its Sisters,” popular literature and the “growing insertion” of a new, Westernized Arabic literature into a global literary market.
On Raba’i Madhoun’s ‘Wonderful, Amazing, and Stunning’ ‘Bad Ideas’
Raba’i Madhoun is a Palestinian novelist and journalist whose PEN-supported The Lady from Tel Aviv was recently translated by Elliott Colla and published in English. Madhoun answered a few questions about his writing, and the challenges and controversies that have attended it, for AL:
Three Novelists, Poet on Egypt’s 50-member Constitution Committee
On Sunday afternoon, Egypt’s presidential spokesman Ihab Badawi announced names of the 50 member-committee given the job of re-drafting the suspended 2012 constitution.
‘A Treasury of Virtues’: Ali’s Influence on Contemporary Arabic Literature
I recently interviewed Tahera Qutbuddin — editor and translator of A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons, and Teachings of Ali, with the One Hundred Proverbs for the Library of Arabic Literature blog. She talked about the way in which Ali b. Abi Talib’s sermons, proverbs, and poetry influenced the course of Arabic literature.
Big Historical Novels Out from AUC Press This Fall Interweave Fiction, Fact
There are several interesting books in the American University in Cairo Press’s fall catalog, including Radwa Ashour’s Tantoureya (A Woman from Tantoura), Ezzat al-Kamhawi’s Naguib Mahfouz Medal-winning Beyt al-Deeb (House of the Wolf), Farouk Abdel Wahab’s final translation, and more.
Syrian Novelist Khaled Khalifa on a Possible US Strike
Syrian novelist Khaled al-Khalifa posted this statement on his Facebook page. Translation, with slight editing, Lina Sinjab:
SF Author Saladin Ahmed ‘Dark Horse’ on Hugo Award Shortlist
The 2013 Hugo Awards are set to be announced on September 1 at San Antonio’s “LoneStarCon.” Among the five shortlisted for the “Best Novel” award is debut author Saladin Ahmed, the first Arab-American and first Muslim shortlisted for the prize.