For Sudanese readers living through the current crisis, the following lines by the late Mohammed el-Makkī Ibrahim resonate with striking immediacy, even though they were written in the 1980s. Beneath the layers of grief, a restrained optimism continues to breathe through its lines.
Although Kay Heikkenen has previously won the Banipal (for her translation of Huzama Habayeb’s Velvet) this was, surprisingly, the first time Marilyn Booth has won the prize.
When can loss that never ends be said to have happened? When will absence finally finish arriving? Who is the self if left partial, displaced from identity to be found neither here nor there? And if loss defines us, when may we be ourselves?
An ongoing list of Arabic literature in translation forthcoming in 2026.
What happens on New Year’s Eve when a conservative (and naive) father comes to his son’s front door, in Cairo, and hears something he never expected? A holiday classic from Egyptian writer Ibrahim Abdelkader Al-Mazni (1889–1949).
What we’ve published this year.
New short fiction by the relentlessly creative Palestinian writer Nasser Rabah.
Today, the Bait AlGhasham DarArab International Translation Prize announced its 2026 shortlists in three categories: Translators, Authors, and Omani Publications.
Salah and Abdullah’s small bookshop in Nuseirat is a testament to the power of literature. A model of Palestinian endurance.
