New Short Fiction: ‘Sleeping in Front of Al-Gomhorya Cafe’
In this short fiction by Mai Al-Maghribi, “a watchtower grew over my shoulder, yellow and dry, with windows on both sides, and my father was the security guard who watched my every move.”
Egypt
New Poetry in Translation: ‘Love’ by Ahmed Yamani
“Love / was the axe that strikes // Love / was the hand holding the axe”
An Excerpt from Ahmed El Fakharany’s ‘The Quail King: An Alexandrian Odyssey’
“I was nineteen years old, working in Mu`allim Idris’s workshop, when I asked him about the age of the Universe.”
New Fiction: ‘The Echo of Silence’ by Hany Ali Said
“He stares at the reflection of the furniture in the mirror but everything is perfectly still. When he speaks to his own reflection, he hears a muffled hiss like the one made by the hands of a clock.”
Lit & Found: Muhammad Aladdin’s ‘Season of Migration to Arkadia’
Egyptian writer Muhammad Aladdin’s short story “Season of Migration to Arkadia” (tr. Humphrey Davies) is available as a free e-book from publisher mikrotext.
Critic, Scholar Gaber Asfour Dies at 77
Egyptian literary critic, scholar, and two-time Minister of Culture Gaber Asfour died on Friday at the age of 77.
From the FOLK Issue: ‘Death in Three Portraits’
Bakhit Al-Bashari lay in his sickbed, the same bed he once made with his bare hands from the stalks of palm fronds.
Egyptian Novelist Shady Lewis on Coptic Identity, Church-State Relations, and Citizenship
“In Ways of the Lord, Christians are mistaken for being Jews and are accused of spying for Israel, which demonstrates the lack of recognition of Copts and their conflation with other minorities.”
13 Books in Translation: A Literary History of Egypt After 2011
These thirteen books (six novels, three works of literary nonfiction, a graphic novel, a poetry collection, a short-story collection, and a collection of playtexts) provide a not-insubstantial literary landscape of contrasting visions and emotions: