7 Arabic Books That Foreground the Rain
To celebrate the release of ArabLit Quarterly’s RAIN-themed Spring 2023 issue, we have assembled seven Arabic books in which, in some way or another, rain plays a more or less important role.
To celebrate the release of ArabLit Quarterly’s RAIN-themed Spring 2023 issue, we have assembled seven Arabic books in which, in some way or another, rain plays a more or less important role.
“Sheikhun Muharram disappeared.”
In honor of the “Kitchen” issue of ArabLit Quarterly, a re-run from 2016, about the history of sharkasiyya, a dish important in Mahfouz’s Palace Walk. This piece also ran on kitchening […]
“More from 2020 in the afterlife of Naguib Mahfouz.”
Yesterday, the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) announced the longlists for the 2020 National Translation Awards (NTA) in Poetry and Prose. Two works translated from Arabic — a novel and a collection of interlinked short stories — made the twelve-book longlist for prose.
“He was an all-round writer with a strong social conscience, and after seeing how he reflected on society and its ills through the indirect allegorical lens of fiction I thought it would be interesting to see how he addressed the issues that concerned him through the more direct medium of a regular newspaper column.”
Sheikhun Muharram disappeared.
Despite the passing of Naguib Mahfouz in 2006, plenty happened in the ongoing life of his work.
“I was trying to explore what I’ve been calling ‘Mahfouz’s Sufi Noir,’ to see how and why he was drawn to both crime-writing and Sufi storytelling and the same time. When I read ‘Culprit Unknown,’ I couldn’t believe how much it was like a detective story—and that it hadn’t been translated yet!”