Poetry

My interest in Arabic literature follows my interest in all literature: it’s artistic, it’s sympathetic, it’s aesthetic. My ideal book could be Sonallah Ibrahim’s (Egyptian) Stealth, could be W.G. Sebald’s […]

Naguib Mahfouz’s Eid al-Adha reminiscences.

RS: Do you build on the work of others? MD: Yes. Very much so. I feel that no poem starts from nothing. Humanity has produced such a huge poetic output, […]

Bikya Masr has an interesting piece about the business of buying books in Cairo, seeming to attribute the rise in book-buying solely to the publication of The Yacoubian Building in […]

Ibrahim’s referring to Al-Talasus, out soon as Stealth from Aflame Books. And my God it’s good. A review of the original here. “I don’t expect anything in return for completing […]

Publications will trip over themselves to tell you what to lug to the beach for “summer reading.” But who can concentrate with all that sun? The best time for reading […]