News

I have been caught up in an Elias Khoury feeding frenzy of late, reading Yalo (Quercus edition), Gate of the Sun, and White Faces (or White Masks, as Maia Tabet […]

What author Anant Kunda has to say about “international” literature in India has echoes in modern Arabic (international) literature. Hans Dembowski: Who is the audience of Indian authors that write […]

Egyptian novelist Alaa el-Deeb wrote a column called Assir Al-Kutub (Books’ Nectar) for some 40 years. Now 70, El-Deeb tells Al Ahram Weekly he does not feel he has accomplished […]

Events March 5 and 6 at NYU and the New School (respectively) exploring and comparing Mahmoud Darwish and Nazim Hikmet. Presentations by, among others, Sinaan Antoon and Elias Khoury. And […]

Ahmed Khalifa (I have quoted his book- and film-review blog on more than one occasion) will have a signing tonight for his new novel, Beware the Stranger. According to Khalifa, […]

The Quarterly Conversation has posted a nice investigation of the assumptions behind Claudia Roth Pierpont’s New Yorker piece on Arabic lit by former Interlink editor Hilary Plum. Does Arabic literature […]

The word on the street (and in The National, and the Saudi Gazette, and parroted by me) has been that Arabic Booker-winning Azazeel (Beelzebub), by Youssef Ziedan, will be out […]

Humphrey’s the award-winning translator of a number of books, including Ahmed Alaidy’s Being Abbas el-Abd, Gamal al-Ghitani’s Pyramid Texts, Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis, and Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun, […]

I missed this while at the Cairo International Book Fair on Friday: Egyptian security confiscated Idris Ali’s new novel, The Leader is Cutting His Hair. The book is reportedly critical […]