Best 100 Arabic Books (According to the Arab Writers Union): 41-50
This is where you'll find 1-10 (and an explanation of this project), and here's 11-20, 21-30, and 31-40. Please do help me out with errors and omissions. 41 The Heron, by the Egyptian author Ibrahim Aslan, translated by Elliot Colla and published by AUC Press. Read the eloquent Baheyya's homage to Aslan here. 42 Gate of the Sun, by the Lebanese author Elias Khoury, translated by Humphrey Davies and published by Archipelago. 43 Latin Quarter, by the Lebanese author Suhail Idriss. Banipal has an obituary for Idriss in 31, although I could find none of Idriss' stories in the magazine. I did find one in Salma Khadra Jayysusi’s Modern Arabic Fiction: An Anthology. 44 Return of the Soul, by the ...
Best 100 Arabic Books (According to the Arab Writers Union): 31-40
This is where you'll find 1-10 (and an explanation of this project), and here's 11-20 and 21-30. Please do help me out with errors and omissions. 31 Najran Under Zero, by the Palestinian Yaha Yakhlaf. I could not find Najran Taht al-Sifr in English (see above for my horrible, literal translation), but I did see Buhayrah Wara' al-Rih, translated as A Lake Beyond the Wind by May Jayyusi and Christopher Tingley, published by Interlink. 32 Lovers, by Palestinian author Rashad Abu Shawar, is reputedly "the finest novel to describe the misery of Palestinians in the refugee camp setting. I could not find Lovers, but I did find an excerpt from Abu Shawar's A Memoir of Return in Banipal issue 12 ...
Best 100 Arabic Books (According to the Arab Writers Union): 21-30
This is where you'll find 1-10 (and an explanation of this project), and here's 11-20. Please continue to help me out with errors and omissions. 21 The Epidemic, by Syrian author Hani al-Raheb, was excerpted in Banipal 9, translated by Bassam K Frangieh. I can find none of al-Rehab’s fiction outside this excerpt. However, I did see that The Zionist Character in the English Novel was translated into English and published by Third World Books. It's out of print. 22 The Forbidden, by Egyptian author Yusuf Idris. Finally, my dear Yusuf appears! Al-Haraam has not been translated, but these have: The Cheapest Nights and Other Stories, The Sinners, Rings of Burnished Brass, City of Love and Ashes. There’s also The ...
Best 100 Arabic Books (According to the Arab Writers Union): 11-20
You can find 1-10 here. 11. The Animists, by Libyan author Ibrahim al-Koni, translated by Elliot Colla. Available June 2012. I had thought The Animists was supposed to be out this year, but when I looked to make sure, the IPM/AUC website had been modified: It's now set to roll out June 2012. But, in poking around, I also discovered that William Hutchins has a translation of al-Koni’s The Puppet that’s supposed to be out this fall from University of Texas Press. 12. Tattoo, by Iraqi author Abdul Rahman Majeed al-Rubaie It looks like Tattoo was translated by Shakir Mustafa and excerpted in Banipal 17, but then I don’t see that the full novel was ever translated and/or published. Note ...
A Few of My Favorite Things: Egyptian Authors, Taha Hussein-Present
Please don't think that the list below is authoritative. It doesn't have Yahia Haqqi, for instance, because I haven't read him. It doesn't have Edwar Kharrat, because I've found the translations of him very unsatisfying. It's not even authoritative on its own terms: my favorite things. I'm forgetful. And poetry! I'm very remiss with poetry. Obviously, you should read Amal Dunqul, although maybe there's no proper translation? If you feel I've skipped over someone wonderful, please do add their name below. And perhaps I'll try to do this with Lebanese literature, and Iraqi lit, whenever the mental lightning strikes. In chronological-ish order, beginning with the Earliest Modern Authors: Taha Hussein (1889-1973), best-known (at least by me) as a memoirist and ...
Mansour El Souwaim on Literature in Sudan
Mansour El Souwaim was born in south Darfur in 1970, and thus must be one of the elders of the Beirut39 (39 "up and coming" Arabic authors under 40). El Souwaim has published two novels (the second of which won the Tayeb Salih Award for Creative Writing) and a collection of short stories. The stories have appeared in French, but none of his writing---as far as I've been able to dig up---has yet appeared in English. He talks with an unnamed interviewer at Beirut39 about the state of the novel in the Sudan: The Sudanese novel is considered young compared to the world novels and even Arabic novels. The Sudanese novel is half a century old or younger. Other literary-artistic ...
Laila al-Othman: Too Much Sex in New Saudi (Women’s) Lit
A couple weeks back, Kuwaiti novelist Laila al-Othman found an appreciative audience when she attacked a new strain of Saudi literature, penned by women, for its "increasingly sexual content." According to the Arab news-translation service Meedan: Al-Othman told a seminar in Saudi Arabia “the trend towards increasing sexual content can be understood by the love of fame and the fact that publishing houses race to have new female writers who aspire to make hasty career jumps." Al-Othman apparently pointed to Wardah Abdel-Malik's Al-Awbah (The Return) and Saba al-Harz's Al-Akharoun (The Others), although she surely also must've had in mind Rajaa Alsanea's very popular Girls of Riyadh. Apparently, several other Saudi women novelists have agreed with Al-Othman. Meedan floated these unattributed ...
