"Al-Yūsī’s orientation, and Morocco’s orientation at the time, was toward the south. It’s something that we don’t think about today."
Al-Yūsī’s Discourses: Situating a Sufi Scholar in a Vivid 17th-Century Morocco
"It’s not quite the same as a purely autobiographical text, but it’s almost more interesting for that. They’re more like mini-essays. I do think that the work, for that reason, can be read by people who aren’t interested in seventeenth-century Morocco."
Literary Playlist: Songs for the Years of Lead
Among the features is a literary playlist for Youssef Fadel's "Years of Lead" trilogy.
3 Poems from Sillerman-shortlisted El Habib Louai
They got nothing except / Seven sheepskins on hard floors / The Sultan’s black and white photograph on blank walls / A guerba of goat skin full of well water / Broken jugs, hay-stuffed rucksack pillows & clay plates
A New Graphic-novel Adaptation of Mohamed Choukri’s ‘For Bread Alone’
A graphic-novel adaptation of Mohamed Choukri's iconic For Bread Alone -- by Moroccan comics artist Abdelaziz Mouride (1949-2013) is finally coming to print.
Friday Finds: ‘So Why Did I Defend Paul Bowles?’
In the New York Review of Books, Hisham Aidi writes about Paul Bowles, Tangier, repression, Orientalist distortion, and the persistence of myth.
Zainab Fasiki, Fighting ‘Hshouma’
She was also inspired by Algerian cartoon artist Slim, and the Moroccan author Abdellah Taïa, who writes openly about being gay -- and, of course, the Amazigh queen, Kahina.
Mohammed Said Hjiouij Wins Inaugural Ismail Fahd Ismail Prize
"For my grandmother, her father was a martyr in the glorious battle of Annual. She convinced herself of this, and she believed it."
Friday Finds: Conor Bracken Translates the Late Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine
"Time fled past the trashcans. Zodiac partied hard with long and bloody fireflies."
Winners of 2019 Prix du Maroc du Livre in French, Arabic, Tamazight
Awards were given in seven categories, including: poetry, prose, children's literature, and translation.
On Publication Day for ‘Shimmering Red Fish,’ 5 of Youssef Fadel’s Favorites
To mark publication day, Youssef Fadel sent five of his favorite reads: one from Jordan and four from Morocco; two available in translation and three not yet translated to English.
2019 IWP Residents Include Soukaina Habiballah, Amira-Géhanne Khalfallah
This year, two IWP residents come from neighboring Maghrebi nations.
