Today, we share Fatma Qandil and Adam Talib’s wide-ranging discussion with Tugrul Mende, which touches on: the method behind Qandil’s writing, standing on the shoulders of other women writers, why this book was a challenge to translate, and the joy of being read by a younger generation.
Arabic works newly out in translation in May 2025 include two award-winning, a work of eleventh-century invective (and fourteenth-century explication), and Syrian short fiction.
“For me, actually, I think we are impacted by male writers who are writing now, and they are writing about broken masculinity, which I don’t like either. So maybe women are free of this, relatively. Maybe they are marginalized, so they have more opportunity to think, to write.”
For Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth), we have assembled 21 women from 12 countries who have no book-length work in English, where, if they did, it would improve your day.
