Adania Shibli on Samira Azzam: ‘Out of Time’
“My little watch is the first to sense the change, going into and out of Palestine.”
Nonfiction
INTRODUCING ‘Out of Time: The Collected Short Stories of Samira Azzam’
Today, we are launching our first crowd-supported translation: Ranya Abdelrahman’s translation of thirty-one selected stories by the great cult-classic Palestinian writer Samira Azzam.
The Patriotic Sufi
“Faceless, I gaze. / Legless, I dance.”
Author Mohamed Kheir on Surreal Coincidences and the Mysteries of Translation
” One day, I read Lorca’s wonderful poem “Elegy to a Bullfighter,” translated into Arabic by a great Arab poet. I was agitated by the translation, not because I knew Spanish — I don’t know Spanish — but because I memorized the poem from another translation, which had been done by a man who was neither a poet nor a translator. “
From the WEDDINGS Issue: ‘The Grim Symbolism of Weddings in Algerian Oral Literature’
“Grim Symbolism” is one of the essays included in the Fall 2022 issue of ArabLit Quarterly.
Kneading Words: Mohammed Alnaas on Bread, Writing, and the Stuff of Language
“With time, I came to the conclusion that bread-baking as a creative act resembles the art of writing in many ways that might not be obvious to the untrained eye. And that the similarities become clearer with practice, and by persevering with the act of creation and creativity.”
‘Jasmine’: Memories of Mo Salah
This short personal essay originally appeared in Akhbar al-Adab in 2018 and appears here with the author’s gracious permission. Jasmine By Mahmoud Atef Translated by Rahma Bavelaar Each morning, the […]
In Memory of Ghassan al-Jibai, His ‘Nails’
I had no access to poison, a rope, or any sharp objects. They confiscated any tool that would make death feasible. Had I owned pins, I wouldn’t have been satisfied with only pricking out my eyes in the manner of King Oedipus. They confiscated my tie, eyeglasses, belt, watch, and my wedding ring, and they placed me in a bare and cramped prison cell where it wasn’t even possible to smash my head against its walls.
Remembering Muthaffar Al-Nawab: Poet, Nomad, and Warrior for Justice Who Fought from the Trenches of Poetry
“. But this fervor, depth, and audacity also made exile the only possibility for such a voice, as he became a particularly odd type of globetrotter, one who remained for half a century merely one step ahead of his pursuers. “