The winners will be celebrated at the 2019 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony on February 26 in NYC.
Friday Finds: ‘The Earth Opens and Welcomes You,’ by Abdellatif Laâbi
"The earth opens / and welcomes you / Why these cries, these tears / these prayers. / What have they / lost / What are they looking for / those who disturb/ Your new-found peace?"
Book Review: ‘Marrakech Noir,’ Edited by Yassin Adnan
"The 15 stories in Marrakech Noir are translated from Arabic, French and Dutch, and the crimes within are suited to a city where extreme wealth and poverty brush shoulders. There are women fleecing men, youths fleecing elders, guides fleecing tourists, and stories where everyone is trying to cheat everyone else."
A Cult Classic: Ahmed Bouanani Day in NYC and DC
"Today, Bouanani's English-language publisher, New Directions, is celebrating the two books with simultaneous launch events in NYC and DC."
Translate This! Khadija Marouazi’s ‘Biography of Ash’
"There, where my body seemed to lay a great distance from me, I put my hand on my leg, on my fingers, and I couldn't tell they were mine. My thighs. My legs. My waist. Everything was dry and withered."
Moroccan World Cup Team: 23 Writers
"Again, remember, writers must be living to play, so no Mohammed Choukri, Ahmed Bouanani, Muhammad Zafzaf, Mohamed Leftah, Driss Chraïbi, or Malika Moustadraf."
Friday Finds: ‘Everything in You Grew, But Not Your Hand’
Your rude fist wrapped it round And clung.
Friday Finds: Juan Goytisolo – Tangier, Havana and the Treasonous Intellectual
Waiters would greet him, “Ja’izat Nobel dyalna, our own Nobel laureate,” and set him up at a table with a pot of green tea.
Friday Finds: Youssef Fadel in The New Yorker
“To be a writer you have to be against the state, firstly,” Fadel insisted. “Against everything—the writer is a demolisher."
Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation: Once and Future Moroccos
"I must say, I’ve never taught a course on Moroccan literature, until now, because I felt there hasn’t been enough work available. I feel like I’m now ready to start thinking about such a course."
Court Jesters and Black Mirrors: Translator Alex Elinson on Bringing Moroccan Literature into English
"The words that I fear more than anything when I’m talking to someone in Arabic is, ‘I have a joke.’ They’ll tell the joke, I’ll understand all the words, and I won’t react. Then they’ll tell it again. I’ll understand it, but I still won’t laugh. Humor is a minefield!"
Moroccan Author Chourouq Nasri’s ‘Blue in Green’ Longlisted for 2017 Short Story Day Africa Prize
All the longlisted stories will appear in the anthology "ID: New Short Fiction from Africa," scheduled for release in July 2018.
