A Talk with Shalash, the Explosively Popular Iraqi Satirist
"After only a few days—let’s say less than the first week after the appearance of Shalash—he became a phenomenon that occupied public opinion. It was a terrible thing for me, to be influential in a way that I did not expect, and that I could not even imagine, in the sense that readers turned Shalash into their conscience and their exclusive voice." ...
‘Point Zéro’: A Graphic Novel that Centers the Desert as Protagonist
"This book is not meant to give answers. I have nothing to say. I'm researching. And this book will be related to my research, in the most honest way possible. May this book be completed, without concessions." ...
Encounters Between Languages: Nancy Roberts on Translating Ibrahim al-Koni’s ‘The Night Will Have Its Say’
"I was aware from the very start of the novel that one of its themes would be language, translation, and encounters between languages. This was one of the things that drew me to it, including the amusing and lyrical way the author describes the opening encounter between al-Kahina and the envoy sent by the Muslim general Hasan Ibn al-Nuꜥman." ...
A Look at Hamdi Abu Golayyel, Bedouin Poetry, and ‘The Men Who Swallowed the Sun’
Translator Ibrahim Fawzy curates this special section on beloved and award-winning Egyptian novelist Hamdi Abu Golayyel, chronicler of Egypt's dispossessed, and scribe of the poetry and culture of the Bedouin ...
“Orphaned of Light”: Graham Liddell on Editing ‘Absinthe 28’ and Translating Arab/ic Migration
"My hope is that these often-revelatory writings, translated into English, can expand readers’ understandings of border policies, and of the diverse range of personalities, aspirations, and experiences that exist among migrants. So I’d like to say that I come down on the side of translating over not translating, with the caveat, of course, of always obtaining full permission from authors and/or rights holders." ...
Rewriting National History from a Personal Perspective: Hiyem Cheurfa on Arab Women’s Life Writing
This March, Hiyem Cheurfa’s new book Contemporary Arab Women’s Life Writing and the Politics of Resistance appeared as part of Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature series. In it, Cheurfa takes us on a journey through a number of women’s memoirs, written in the context of twenty-first century uprisings. In this conversation, the author talks about the challenges and the difficulties of writing this book and how the texts she studied changed her life. ...
Finding the Music and Rhythm of Zakaria Tamer in English: A Conversation with Alessandro Columbu
I hate the term native speaker, and I don’t think that it explains anything about how a person speaks. I think it’s kind of misleading to assume that someone who is a so-called native speaker will know more, and I don’t think that is true." ...
Author Haji Jaber & Translators Talk ‘Black Foam’
" The truth is that the person who didn’t leave my mind is someone I didn’t talk to; rather, we kept looking at each other without speaking." ...
Introducing Fikra Magazine, ‘A Project by Palestinians and for Palestinians’
"Although we are a literary magazine, we are open to all art forms, especially those that experiment with and criticize the status quo." ...
kotobli: A Book-discoverability Platform Aiming to ‘Showcase Arabic Books’
"As a first step, readers interested in books from the Arab world or on the Arab world can discover books based on several features: discovering books according to an author’s gender or country of origin, finding books from a specific publisher or country (...), browsing through our book titles and thematic curations to find SWANA-specific subjects (e.g. Egyptian surrealism, prison literature)." ...
