The Common: Issue 23 Virtual Launch Party
On May 4th at 5pm EDT, join The Common for the virtual celebration of Issue 23!
Nashwa Gowanlock
New Short Fiction in Translation: Mahmoud Tawfik’s ‘The Mirror’
On the third night of the festival, the writer knocked on his interpreter’s door and said: “I need you to be less passionate when you translate. Something about your voice has been irritating me.”
An Excerpt of ‘After Coffee’: ‘Music Would Arrive Uninvited’
“Music followed him wherever he went. If it hadn’t been beautiful and giving, he might have said it was pursuing him. What temptation did it see in him? And what was the truth behind this wine that outweighed the impact of any drug?”
‘After Coffee’: A Dialogue Between Author, Translator, and Editor
“I was immediately absorbed by the description of the Egyptian village, which I knew I would never experience so intimately as a visitor. The opening scene with its image of the novel’s 5-year old protagonist Medhat, racing across the canal that divides his village from the village of the Upper Egyptians had me hooked.”