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We were in a stationary store a few month’s back—these sometimes double as book shops in Cairo—and my six-year-old son asked for a new book. Fine, we said. There were […]

Youssef Ziedan recently found himself in the position of defending the inrush of Gulf money into the arts. Organizations in the Gulf, particularly the UAE, have not just been pouring […]

That’s the headline from the UAE-based Khaleej Times, and it’s certainly the headline for me, too. I know almost nothing about Saudi literature, except that there have been a number […]

The last three stories in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: An Anthology all struck me, although not as deeply as Khudayyir, Naqqash, or Shimon. Ibtisam Abdullah’s second story, “The Other in the […]

“The Street Vendor and the Movies,” the next story in the anthology that really hit me, is by Samuel Shimon. It’s excerpted from his An Iraqi in Paris—which I meant […]

The second gem of Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: An Anthology is Samir Naqqash’s “Tantal.” There is only one story by him in the collection, although it’s a lovely one, about illusionment […]

I have read only the two opening stories of Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: An Anthology, finally available in Egypt from AUC Press. If all the rest of the pages were blank, […]

Eight young Arab authors—six of whom are on the prestigious Beirut 39 list—are currently squirreled away at Sir Baniyas Island, writing a short story or novel chapter and being tutored […]

In 2008, the Emirates Foundation funded the first “Arabic Booker” literary prize. The Dubai International Poetry Festival 2009 has announced its intentions to revive an ancient Arab literary contest. The […]