Poetry

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 […]

The greatest literary show on Earth, we’re not. The General Egyptian Book Organization calls it a “massive literary festival,” and oh, it’s massive all right. The fair’s at the International […]

Yamani, who apparently is traveling, is the Egyptian writer missing from Kotob Khan’s Beirut39 reading and discussion. Sousan Hammad has a new (short) interview with him on the Beirut39 blog. […]

Last night, I attended the Beirut39 event at Kotob Khan (bookstore, although it feels strange to write “Book store bookstore”). We did not get to know the authors’ weights and […]

Arabic children’s-book publisher Kalimat has just received a 1.5-dirham ($408,000 U.S.) sponsorship from Gulftainer. This prestigious publishing house, exclusively for children, has seen just over 40 books into print. It […]

Sami Michael is an Iraqi-born, Israeli author. Claudia De Martino interviews him for Med Arab News. I was particularly interested in his switch-over from writing in Arabic to writing in […]

The Callaloo website is a wee bit behind; good that Laila Lalami put out the alert about the current edition featuring Middle Eastern/North African authors. Callaloo 32: 4 features poetry […]