A Conversation About Miral Altahawy’s IPAF-shortlisted ‘Days of the Shining Sun’
” This is a godless world, even though Allah is mentioned all the time. The only possible heroism in the novel is that of survival in face of misery.”
Reviews
5 Songs for the Launch of Haji Jaber’s ‘Black Foam’
Haji Jaber’s Black Foam is full of diverse cultural, linguistic, and musical landscapes. It opens in Addis Ababa, Eritrea, one of the final stages in our main character’s journey from his tangled past […]
On the Translation of NTA-shortlisted ‘Exhausted on the Cross’
The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) announced yesterday that Najwan Darwish and Kareem James Abu-Zeid’s Exhausted on the Cross was one of the four-book shortlist for their poetry prize, alongside works by Mandelstam (tr. Peter France), Dante (tr. D. M. Black), and atalka Bilotserkivets (tr. Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky).
WatWat Takes Flight: Arabic Comics for Young Readers
Since its creation in 2007, the comics collective Samandal has published more than 17 magazines, six anthologies, and six graphic novels. What’s more, the collective has undertaken numerous initiatives for the promotion of comics in Lebanon. From this experience, the youth-focused WatWat or “Bat” project was born in 2018.
Translation’s Agitated Mirror
“Perhaps each iteration of the poem is a supplicant, yearning for a connection with Ibn Arabi’s original. Or perhaps each one is a lover, longing to see itself in another. Perhaps they are both.”
‘Une Révolte Tunisienne’: New Graphic Novel from Lab619 Co-founders Released in Arabic and French
Une révolte Tunisienne is set in between history and fiction, with the main story taking place in the days of the Tunisian “bread riots.”
Najwan Darwish and the Politics/Poetics of Translating Exhaustion
“Translators of Palestinian poetry, in addition to untangling the poetics of pain (or in our case, exhaustion), carry the additional burden of making people listen.”
Review & Excerpt: ‘The Marooned Mirror,’ A Wonderland Revisited
Captured in the Twilight Wood, Faris and Farah go on a page-turning adventure while taking part in a long-awaited uprising against evil.
All That Ali Kotb Knows: On ‘Meccano’
Before it was published by the now-shuttered Sharkiat publishing house in 2011, the novel won the Ihsan Abdel Quddous Award that same year.