Rasha Abbas, the ‘King of Cups,’ and How Literature Lags Behind Music
“Sorry, I don’t know what NGO means.”
Poetry
Sunday Submissions: The TA First Translation Prize and 2018 PEN/Heim Grants
“The PEN/Heim Translation Fund was established in the summer of 2003, and — since that time — it has funded a total of 139 translations from over 35 languages, including three projects translated from Arabic.”
Saturday Summer Re-runs: On Translating ‘A’ishah al-Ba’uniyyah, Perhaps Arabic’s Most Prolific Premodern Woman Writer
“When she’s in Cairo and she’s having these exchanges, she’s a widow. She’s probably in her fifties. Her son is with her, and he’s working as a secretary for the Sultan, and she’s living in the quarters of a family friend with his wife. Certainly somebody’s going to take exception, you’re always going to have conservative elements, but we don’t know of it.”
Friday Finds: A Conversation with Jehan Bseiso and Filmpoem ‘No Search, No Rescue’
“Being naturally bilingual, you already inhabit this in-between kind of space. And hearing my poetry in my mother tongue, it feels very different.”
Must-read Classics by Women: Latifa al-Zayyat’s ‘The Open Door’
“In 2017, The Open Door still makes a thrilling romantic read about finding a feminist lover in an anti-feminist world, while also asking: How does one find the rediscover one’s authentic childhood self as an adult? And how, in this world of injustices, does one productively resist?”
Badriyah Albeshr’s ‘Thursday’s Visitors’: A New Translation by Sawad Hussain
“She felt ashamed, then disgusted, then hatred for her defiled body. She wished she could exact revenge on them all, herself included.”
For ‘Women in Translation’ Month, 8 New or Forthcoming Books by Arab Women
August is Women in Translation month. Eight to read or put on your to-read list.
Saturday Summer Re-Runs: Salwa Bakr on ‘Women and Arabic Literature’
“Bakr also critiqued the representation of women in literature, criticizing both men and women authors for failing to write good female characters.”
Friday Finds: Iman Mersal on Saniya Salih
“I did not find Saniya Saleh in Cairo.”