Libyan Novelist Ahmed Fagih, 76
Libyan novelist Ahmed Fagih (1942-2019), best-known for his twelve-volume historical epic Maps of the Soul, died Tuesday at a hospital in Cairo.
News
Sharjah as London Book Fair’s 2020 ‘Market Focus’ to Include Writer’s Residency
“In the lead up to The London Book Fair, SBA and British Council will offer a reciprocal Writer in Residence programme. The SBA will offer one British author the chance to be a Writer in Residence in the UAE and the British Council will offer one Emirati author the chance to be a Writer in Residence in the UK.”
Nadia Wassef on Egypt’s Diwan Bookstores, 17 Years Later
“What’s happened in the last few years in Egypt has filtered out a lot of people. Diwan came very close to extinction several times. It’s a bit of a miracle we’re still there. The players left in this better learn to collaborate.”
An Excerpt of Inaam Kachachi’s IPAF-shortlisted ‘The Outcast’
“She told herself to get up, make her way to the emergency alarm, and pull its red tongue. She would hear the screeching of the wheels as they scraped against the railroad tracks, spewing sparks.”
Friday Finds: ‘Alaa Seif on the Need for New Imaginations’
” I also felt there was never an explicit ban when it came to books, but things would be set aside for months for ‘review,’ and after a while I would forget about them. “
Writing (and Translating) Queer Characters in Egyptian Novels
“But [the book] is not about the Queen Boat. It’s about Hani Mahfouz as a gay man in Egypt and his relationship with his mother and the character Abdel Aziz. I was thinking about the people and not the event.”
Poet and Novelist Mohcine Akhrif Dies by Electric Shock at Book Event
Moroccan poet and novelist Mohcine Akhrif (1979-2019) died Sunday at a regional book fair in the northern city of Tetouan.
Egyptian Publisher Khaled Lufti Shortlisted for 2019 Prix Voltaire
The Prix Voltaire, according to organizers, “rewards exemplary courage in upholding the freedom to publish and in enabling others to exercise their right to freedom of expression.”
Shady Lewis Botros: ‘Fiction Puts the Author in a Less Vulnerable Position’
“It is probably not a coincidence that ‘Turuq al-Rab’ is written as a series of confessions to a priest.”