For 2020’s International Women’s Day: 8 New & Forthcoming Books by Women
This list-of-eight includes a range of novels, poetry collections, short-story collections, and graphic novels, translated from Arabic and from French.
Poetry
Saturday Submissions: VIDA Lit Review
“The VIDA Review is currently able to pay those published under fiction, nonfiction, and poetry $15-$20 per author. This is a very small token but we are currently actively working on increasing funds so as to pay authors more.”
Two New Books Preserving Cairo’s Urban Landscape
“Perhaps what we need to preserve the city aren’t renovations of buildings deemed historic, but books we can carry with us through the city and through other cities, to remind us of where Cairo is and where it is heading.”
Ola al-Jabr on Writing in Damascus
“I tried with the second collection to publish in Damascus,” al-Jabr said, “but the doors are closed.”
Born on This Day: 7 Poems by Fadwa Tuqan
“Do not fill postcards with memories/
Between my heart and the luxury of passion/
stretches a desert where ropes of fire/
blaze and smolder, where snakes/
coil and recoil, swallowing blossoms
with poison and flame.”
Sunday Submissions: Tolsun Books Seeks Literary Translations
They’re looking for “full-length and chapbook manuscripts made from parts: poetry, short-stories, essays, hybrids, translations, and things we couldn’t have dreamed of. We value new and experienced, diverse authors with high-energy voices.”
Friday Finds: 5 By and About Abdelrahman Munif
“The first book that I read was for adults, ‘East of the Mediterranean,’ by the renowned author Abdul Rahman Munif. I read it when I was eight years old.”
‘Dar Arab’ Publishing House Announces First Translations to English
Dar Arab also tweeted: “For this project / dream, the books were chosen as carefully as the translators … the road is long but we are natural-born runners.”
3 Poems from Sillerman-shortlisted El Habib Louai
They got nothing except / Seven sheepskins on hard floors / The Sultan’s black and white photograph on blank walls / A guerba of goat skin full of well water / Broken jugs, hay-stuffed rucksack pillows & clay plates