As publication dates often slip — and new books surface — we try to have a glance at what’s really (to the best of our knowledge) coming in translation from Arabic at the start of each month.
As in previous years, the 2025 READ PALESTINE WEEK will run from November 29-December 5.
The Sheikh Zayed Book Award (SZBA) today announced the longlists in four of the prize’s categories for 2026: Literature, Young Author, Children’s Literature, and Editing of Arabic Manuscripts.
“Marriage is the afterlife / for which we have to cross this life, / leaving behind our homes and pasts, / waiting for justice with a light heart, / where our homes become our graves.”
“nothing to hold on to no more suitcases / & nothing left to take away”
Palestinian short-story writer, publisher and translator Mahmoud Saif al-Din al-Irani (1914-1974) writes about love, loyalty, and gender expectations in the early twentieth century.
The awards ceremony for the 2025 Prix de la littérature arabe — held at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris on November 18 — was an emotionally charged affair.
“My city is full of barking / as if it were our shared memory / howling out there, in the cold.”
“Every time Arwa and Enayat stepped from the private to the public, they returned disappointed. I should clarify that I am not offering an idealistic theory that assumes the world should reward people for their intentions and desires. However, I imagine that their experiences could have been less cruel in other societies that don’t seal the public sphere up so tightly.”
