Reviews of Arabic Novels Not (Yet) in English
Hayawanat Ayyamna (Animals in Our Days), Mohamed Al Makhzangi, 2007. I believe this is the only book on the list of not-yets that has secured an English-language publisher—American University in […]
Reviews
15-Second Reviews: /Fizo Y3ref…Y3ref/ and /Hal Lil Kangaroo Aydan Um/?
At some point, I may need to spin off the Arabic children’s book discussion. (Do you think my two-year-old could maintain his own blog?) But for the moment, the discussion […]
One-Minute Review: Wolves of the Crescent Moon
Wolves of the Crescent Moon. By Yousef Al-Mohaimeed, trans. Anthony Calderbank. AUC Press: Cairo, 2007. 124 pages. An opinion piece by Mahmoud Habboush in The National this week asserts that […]
The (Arabic) Children’s Book Dilemma
Yesterday, I got a very well-timed email from blogger Elias Muhanna. Lately, I’ve been trying to get together an Arabic story time or Arabic toddler book group for my two-year-old. […]
One-minute Review: Taha Hussein’s /The Call of the Curlew/
Ideally, you wouldn’t read the A.B. As-Safi translation of Taha Hussein’s masterwork, The Call of the Curlew, published by Palm Press in 1997. The edition (pictured) is riddled with typos […]
One Minute Review: Taha Hussein’s /The Tree of Misery/
The Tree of Misery. By Taha Hussein, trans. Mona El-Zayyat. The Palm Press: Cairo, 1997 (Arabic 1944). 137 pages. I had thought of the Egyptian writer Taha Hussein (1889-1973) as […]
One-minute Review: Mourid Barghouti’s I Saw Ramallah
There are some aspects of I Saw Ramallah that feel outdated. There were a few moments when, reading Mourid Barghouti‘s 1997 memoir in 2010, I wished the celebrated poet had […]
Reviews of Books I Haven’t Read–or–Why Do the Italians Love Arab Fiction?
Rogers, by Ahmed Nagi Apparently the Italians are interested in contemporary Egyptian writing. According to Al Ahram: This week the Italian publisher Il Sirente issues Rogers by Ahmad Nagi, the […]
Reviews of Books I Haven’t Read
The Guidebook as Literature. The new guidebook Beyroutes offers a very non-guidebook take on Lebanon’s capital city. Scholars, writers, architects and artists explore the city—mostly on foot—giving a literary view […]