al-Jahiz

Launching the MIRRORS Issue: Recovering Their Medieval Magic

In the pieces included here, men seem more likely to link mirrors to a past, while for women they are part of an encircling present. Continue Reading

Summer of Lock-in Lit: Cartooning with Popeye & Curly

“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea in my head. Other times I ravage entire books looking for the spark of a joke. I have read more widely on the subject of medieval Baghdad this spring and summer than I have since grad school, and this has been time very well spent.”Continue Reading

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.
Iman Mersal & Robyn Creswell Make 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize Longlist with ‘The Threshold’
Organizers of the Griffin Poetry Prize — one of the world’s biggest international poetry prizes — have announced this year’s ten-book longlist. Among them was Egyptian poet Iman Mersal’s The Threshold, beautifully translated by Robyn Creswell.