Poetry

“It thought: that which wished to be a white butterfly was a fool and that which wished to be a cherry blossom was a fool.”

The last short story translated from the Arabic to make a Caine Prize shortlist was Tunisian writer Hassouna Mosbahi’s “The Tortoise,” trans. Peter Clark. It made the shortlist in 2001.

When asked back in 2009 what Arabic works should be translated into English, poet-translator Fady Joudah told the Quarterly Conversation he’d like to see Ghassan Zaqtan’s Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me in […]

“Facebook has broken the barrier that distance once put in our way. And a writer in the diaspora may have more of a following in Yemen than a writer who lives here. Plus the freedom that writers can enjoy in exile has a positive impact on Yemeni literature as a whole.”

Deadlines: May 26 (Stephen Spender Prize), September 1 (‘Nakba + 100’), and rolling (‘Zabaan’).

Travel literature? What else could be said about a place like London that has not been said before? You risk not being read or sold. I was advised by Sahar Elmougy to work on the fictional parts of the book and make an effort to turn the book into a novel. I tried and I could not.

“Yes, I am working on a new novel: it will also be a historical narrative, but with a more recent setting, in the 18th or 19th century.”

“The question seems timely. as writing workshops, led by different writers at different stages in their careers, have been booming all across Cairo. “

“Paul Spera, dressed in a suit and red tie, looking as much like Donald Trump as it is possible to do for someone who has not spent 70 years sucking the souls of the less fortunate, blasts onto the stage.”