Poetry

The Beirut39 blog has had a few short interviews up lately with the Beirut39ers. But unless you already know these writers quite intimately, it’s by and large hard to be […]

Diwan has been an integral part of Cairo’s new (upscale) bookish landscape, along with the Sherouq stores and indies like Kotob Khan. So I took note when the chain said […]

In an interesting and highly entertaining piece for The National, Beirut 39er Youssef Rakha reviews the controversies and conspiracy theories surrounding the International Prize for Arabic Fiction—the “Arabic Booker”—now in […]

Looking at the 2009 Arabic Booker shortlist (in translation) makes one wonder: What of 2008? Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis, the winner of the inaugural Arabic Booker, became available in English […]

The winner of the Sheikh Zayed Award for Children’s Literature was announced (yesterday?). It’s the “Arabic-manga” series Gold Ring. I can’t quite tell what it’s about from this or this, […]

I assume that Ian Jack is exaggerating a bit when he speaks of the violent intimacies of European book fairs. Jack probably has not experienced the intimacies of the Cairo […]

I really don’t like it when organizations in the Middle East “unveil” something new. I realize there’s no subtext intended…but…. Anyhow, all seems in order (Yousef Ziedan and Bahaa Taher, […]

I’m working on an essay about Idris, the maestro of Egyptian short-story writing. This passage, in particular, resonated with me: “Renewal of writing is a natural, spontaneous and ingrained process […]

Novels may not be in every (Arab) hand, but poetry lives and breathes, particularly on the peninsula. This is not necessarily the poetry that one would recognize in the West—our […]