Short Fiction in Translation: Mahdi Issa al-Saqr’s ‘The Return’
Mahdi Issa al-Saqr (1927-2006) was born in Basra and published his first short-story collection, مجرمون طيبون (Criminals with Kind Hearts) in 1954. That same year, he and Badr Shakir al-Sayyab founded Modern Art Group, which published new Iraqi writing. Al-Saqr brought out a second collection in 1960, after which he stopped writing. He started again in the 1970s, becoming one of the most widely acclaimed Iraqi writers, continuing to publish up until his death in 2006. His 1998 novel رياح شرقية رياح غربية was translated into English as East Winds, West Winds by Paul Starkey and published by AUC Press in 2010. This story, written in 1994, appeared in al-Saqr’s 2000 collection, شتاء بلا مطر, (Winter Without Rain). The Return ...
Short Fiction in Translation: Ghassan Kanafani’s ‘The Crucified Sheep’
Introduction by Rachel Green This previously untranslated story, written in Kuwait in 1960 and published in Kanafani’s first collection, Death of Bed 12 (1961), provides a glimpse into some of the concerns of the author’s early Kuwait writings, or what Mai al-Nakib calls his “Kuwait stories.” Like many of the stories Kanafani wrote in this period, “The Crucified Sheep” foregrounds the class differences that emerge among populations coming into contact in the Arab Gulf at the beginning of the era of oil exploitation. Any socioeconomic distinctions between the protagonist and his well-to-do friends, who are taking a trip together through the desert, pale in comparison to the abject thirst they see through their dusty car windows. Kanafani’s later writings, such ...
New Fiction in Translation & an Author Talk: Said Khatibi’s ‘The End of the Sahara’
In the latest episode of the BULAQ podcast, Episode 100, co-hosts Ursula Lindsey and M Lynx Qualey talk to Algerian novelist Said Khatibi about his novel The End of the Sahara, which won the 2023 Sheikh Zayed Book Award in the "young author" category. (Listen to the episode.) End of the Sahara is polyphonic literary detective novel set in southern Algeria in September and October 1988, and it begins with the murder of a young singer named Zakia Zaghouani. Although there is an Inspector Hamid who is supposed to be investigating Zaza’s murder, the story is told, in alternating chapters, by more than a dozen different characters. Most have something to do with the Sahara Hotel, which was where Zakia Zaghouani, or ...
Short Fiction in Translation: Najwa Binshatwan’s ‘The Eavesdropper’
By Najwa Binshatwan Translated by Salma Moustafa Khalil She went to the library in the morning and stayed for two hours. She called the plumber as soon as she left; there was a leak in the bathroom. She gave a lesson to one of the foreigners in the evening, then went to bed. That day, she hardly touched the phone. The next morning, she turned the phone over as soon as she woke up. The phone, with all its apps, is like the crush of a pliers. If a person doesn’t liberate herself from it, the phone will never leave her, not even after the death of its battery. She went to the supermarket and shopped. I knew her ...
From May Telmissany’s ‘Everyone Says I Love You’
The 2021 novel Everyone Says I Love You, by acclaimed Egyptian novelist May Telmissany, was longlisted for the 2023 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. For Women in Translation Month, ArabLit editor Nashwa Nasreldin has translated an excerpt of the novel, which "gets under the skin of five middle-aged, middle class Arab intellectuals living in Canada and America, following the twists and turns of their love lives as they question their choices in life and reflect on (un)faithfulness in romantic relationships." By May Telmissany Translated by Nashwa Nasreldin As soon as I sat down on the leather-covered train seat, I felt my body instantly relax, all the way from my back to my fingers and toes. I sank into the seat ...
Daisy Al-Amir’s ‘The Tale of the Oil Jug’
Each stood combing their hair and tidying their clothes and looking at themselves; some admiring themselves and some gazing at their reflections in despair ...
From Enayat al-Zayyat’s ‘Love and Silence
It's publication week for Iman Mersal's award-winning Traces of Enayat, which appears from And Other Stories in Robin Moger's deft and considered English translation. Mersal's genre-encompassing book -- an excerpt of which appeared yesterday on ArabLit -- meditates extensively on the only completed novel by Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat (1936-1963). It was titled Love and Silence and came out only after her suicide. Here, we have an excerpt from the beginning of the novel. By Enayat al-Zayyat Translated by James Scanlan 1 I paused at my window, watching the street from behind the pane. It was deserted; the windows of the houses shut and shuttered—no life, no movement. Time stood still; one minute had become hours of boredom. My time isn't worth ...
Summer Reads: ‘The Government Sea’
"When the central government announced a plan to rebuild what the war had devastated, the municipality put forth a request to establish a sea. Unlike other requests, which usually lingered in a state of neglect, tucked away in drawers, the central government responded right away, as they didn’t have any drawers in their offices in which to hide such paperwork." ...
Summer Reads: ‘The Limping Couch’
"It wasn’t just the Obesity Control Police. Everyone in town constantly challenged my humanity because of my weight. They called me an animal so many times that, for a moment, I thought I’d become one." ...
Summer Reads: Sonallah Ibrahim’s ‘Arsène Lupin’
"My father got dressed, brushed off his tarbush with the sleeve of his jacket, and placed it at an appropriate tilt on his head. Then he twisted the ends of his white mustache all the way up to his nostrils. We left the apartment, locking the door behind us, and went down to the street. I noticed we were heading toward the tram stop." ...
