“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.”Continue Reading
Coming in August: Books by Sonallah Ibrahim, Ibrahim al-Koni, and Faleeha Hassan.Continue Reading
“Yet if al-Koniʹs shorter ‘Bleeding of the Stone’ and ‘Gold Dust’ are small paintings you can hang on a living-room wall, then The Fetishists is a giant multi-room museum piece.”Continue Reading
Nine translations from the Arabic — at least, translated from the Arabic in some roundabout fashion — forthcoming this month.Continue Reading
Emirates Lit Fest Ends Tomorrow Regional and international coverage of Emirates Lit Fest has been subdued this year, in part—one assumes—because there’s so much else going on in the Arabic-writing world. Gulf publications continue to report steadily from the festival, although mostly about the festival’s non-Arabic-writing guests. Emirates 24|7: MohammedContinue Reading
Banipal 39 featured “Modern Tunisian Literature” and 40 will showcase “Libyan Fiction.” If there had been a 39 1/2 on young Egyptian authors, I’d have suspected that editor Samuel Shimon had a really good set of voodoo dolls over there at 1 Gough Square.Continue Reading
Encouraged by translator/scholar/writer Elliott Colla—who had an interesting short essay about Ibrahim al-Koni in yesterday’s Ahram Online—I thought we’d make this an al-Koni week. Although not an “Arab” writer, al-Koni is one of the giants of contemporary Arabic literature, and has a unique and world-encompassing literary vision.Continue Reading
Let’s grit our teeth and get this over with: Did (the extremely talented and worthy) Ibrahim al-Koni win Egypt’s “Arab Novel Prize” because judging chair Gaber Asfour wanted to return a chit to Moammar Ghaddafi? After all, Libya awarded Asfour the Ghaddafi Prize for International Literature earlier this year.Continue Reading
Leading Libyan author Ibrahim al-Koni yesterday received the 100,000LE “Arabic Novel Award” at the closing ceremony of the Cairo Novel Conference.Continue Reading
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