STORIES “Childhood Memories of Ramadan,” Hamdy al-Gazzar. The shift in Ramadan lanterns from the hand-crafted beauties of the past to the imported, battery-operated types (that play high-pitched music and have […]
If you’re interested in the evolution of the Arabic-language graphic novel (and you should be, is what I’m saying), then you should be keeping tabs on the comics magazine Samandal. If you’re […]
My piece on the English edition of Magdy El Shafee’s Metro ran in the print edition of the Egypt Independent last week and is now online. Thanks to Magdy El Shafee and Chip Rossetti (Chip’s Q&A here) for answering my questions.
If you’re available full time — that is, Monday through Friday from 9 to 5 — from October through December of this year (“with slight flexibility on dates”) then do apply to the Center for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW) and Arabia Books publishing internship.
My piece about author-illustrator Magdy El Shafee, his graphic novel Metro, (and its English-language edition) has now run in the print edition of the Egypt Independent / International Herald Tribune. IsA it will be coming soon to the online edition. Meantime, the full Q&A with translator Chip Rossetti that informed the piece:
The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) has taken up some of my favorite topics: Arabic children’s literature and translation. They sent out the following call for papers and workshop announcement:
On the eve of the Booker longlist announcement, critic M.A. Orthofer went on at some length flogging one of his favorite horses: Transparency and the Man Booker Prize. So…what of transparency and the Arabic-language prize affiliated with the Booker?
Sixty years after the 1952 revolution, the legacy of both Gamal Abdel Nasser and his regime remain fraught territory. Was Abdel Nasser a true friend of the poor? Was he an enemy of Islam (or just all dissidents)? How should he be remembered? Abdel Nasser has been the subject of a number of literary depictions over the last half-century, from laudatory to humorous to critical.
The imam who narrates Rasha al-Ameer’s “Judgment Day” is pulled in at least six different directions. The novel’s central character is claimed by a corrupt state, by Islamists, by the Quran, by poetry, by fame and by love. In a way, the eloquent TV-star imam is a Mutanabbi of our times.
