“Reading ‘The Orange Grove’ with my journalist’s eye, I am tempted to pick fault with it[.]”
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review
Djinn Fall in Love in New, Wide-Ranging ‘Djinnthology’
The collection’s best stories — of which there are many — aren’t interested in djinn as a site of the exotic, wish-granting imaginary. Instead, they employ djinn in tales that move sideways to explore cruelty or loss, adolescence or injustice.
In ‘The Drone Eats with Me,’ Reader Between Surveillor and Surveilled
“Here, we are confronted with the question: In our act of reading, are we down there with the narrator or are we up there with the drone?”
‘Hot Whiteness’: A Commentary on Schizophrenic Egypt
“The narrator Abla/Loula tells her story – alternating between the two sides of her schizophrenic self – against the background of the turbulent political times that followed the January 25th revolution.”
Al-Koni’s ‘The New Waw’: The Desert as a Central Character
“There are few names in the narrative, and only a few characters who appear throughout the novel to guide the reader through. It is easier to regard the landscape as the only consistent character.”
Blue Lorries, a strong contender for the Banipal Prize of Arabic Literary Translation
“As a translator, one of the most impressive and delightful feats in the English version is where Nada and her father unwind in the evening by playing a beloved poetry game.”
‘Oh Salaam!’: Is Change Possible in Post-war Beirut?
“…it’s a fast-paced, novella-length work, reminiscent of Muriel Spark’s ‘Driver’s Seat’, both for its black humor and for the way its characters slide precipitously into danger.”
‘The Journey of Hyenas’: A Novel That Contests the ‘Natural Order’
The Journey of Hyenas (2013) by Egyptian writer Soheir al-Musadafah, sets the a story of a woman’s seventh-century slavery against the present day.
Hanan al-Shaykh’s ‘Azara Londonistan’: Bemused, Iconoclastic, Often Hilarious
Hanan al-Shaykh’s latest novel — The Virgins of Londonistan — was released in late November at this year’s Beirut Book Fair. Reviewer Mishka Mojabber Mourani found it to be both flirtatious and important.
‘Dates on My Fingers’: Exploring and Challenging Traditional Masculinities
Reviewer Alexandra Atiya found a challenge to received ideas of masculinity in Iraqi novelist Muhsin al-Ramli’s “Dates on My Fingers” (2014), translated by Luke Leafgren.
‘Diary of a Muslim Jew’: And Yes, That’s the Book’s Title
We have become so accustomed to thinking of religion as a place of singularity in human identity that Diary of a Jewish Musilm gives all the shock in translation that author Kamal Ruhayyim surely intended in the original.
On an 81st Birthday: Why Does Abdelrahman Munif Not Make the ‘World Literature’ Canon?
Today would have been Saudi-Iraqi novelist Abdelrahman Munif’s 81st birthday. Although a great craftsman of the 20th century Arabic novel, his literary legacy goes largely un-celebrated.
