Friday Finds: ‘Mosul, the City with Two Springs’
“I had learned from early childhood that Mosul was a city with two springs because autumn was like a second spring.”
News
The 20 Entries for This Year’s Banipal Translation Prize
The winner of the 2018 prize is set to be announced late January 2019, with an awards ceremony to be held in late February or early March 2019.
Art Installation at Kuwait Book Fair Protesting Censorship Removed
According to AFP, Saad al-Anzi, who heads the fair, said the information ministry had banned 948 books from among those screened for the fair.
‘After Coffee’: A Dialogue Between Author, Translator, and Editor
“I was immediately absorbed by the description of the Egyptian village, which I knew I would never experience so intimately as a visitor. The opening scene with its image of the novel’s 5-year old protagonist Medhat, racing across the canal that divides his village from the village of the Upper Egyptians had me hooked.”
In Memoriam: Ahmed Khalid Tawfik, the Man and the Mission
“When Rifaat Ismail died in the novellas, it caused a sensation on the internet. Fans on social media websites made a de facto protest march online, complaining that the man still had plenty of life in him and that the author should have kept him going for at least another 10 years.”
A Final Interview with Ismail Fahd Ismail: ‘Nostalgia Breeds Transparency’
“My novels are the result of the investigation, and I did not write the novel until I started listening to the people’s opinions.”
Friday Finds: Talks with Ahmed Saadawi, Elias Khoury, & Youssef Rakha
“What I mean by this is only in English could I fully inhabit and write from the perspective of a woman. I have no idea why, but I’m sure it’s nothing to do with the nature of English itself as a language.”
Pub Day for ‘ArabLit Quarterly Fall 2018: Beginnings’
Today is publication day for the first-ever ArabLit Quarterly.
‘Khatt’: From a Love of Egyptian Pop Culture and Arabic Typography
“When we decided to create this book, we wanted to make sure it didn’t seem overly academic but we also did not want it to simply function as a photography book. We felt like we needed to contextualize the images shown and also allow for deeper journeys into specific projects or approaches.”