"His mouth discharged a second snort. I worried he might attack me, or tear me apart, but he settled his body back into the chair and sighed. "
The Two Egyptian Novels Available in Translation This Month
Two very different Egyptian novels appear in translation this month: They are Sonallah Ibrahim's "provocative masterpiece" Warda, translated by Hosam aboul-Ela and Mohamed Kheir's "musical and parabolic" Slipping, translated by Robin Moger.
Working on ‘Warda’: ‘Challenging in all the Ways a Translation Project Could Be’
"Like I say, it’s fleeting, but I could write a whole memoir, I think, just about getting that sentence translated."
Sonallah Ibrahim’s ‘Provocative Masterpiece’ Warda Coming June 2021
"Oman, which is not often in the media spotlight, appears to the reader of Warda not only as a country with a rich tradition and heritage, but also the scene of a violent power struggle between its different political factions."
Summer of Lock-in Lit: Sonallah Ibrahim’s ‘Arsène Lupin’
“Look, there’s no novels,” a voice suddenly boomed directly above my head. “We don’t sell novels.”
Sonallah Ibrahim’s ’67’: Oppression and Its Unintended Consequences
"To write about [1967] is to foreground it yet again; not to write about it is to consign oneself to live with the illusion of its insignificance. . . . The way out of this double bind is to do both at the same time: this may explain why the 67 war is invoked in the title of the novel but is almost entirely absent from the preoccupations of the narrative."
Launching Today: ArabLit Quarterly Summer 2020, the CRIME Issue
The Summer 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly — our issue of summer insight & delight — is now available.
Live Today: Margaret Litvin on Sonallah Ibrahim’s ‘Ice’
Be sure to listen before the live Zoom discussion, open to the public today at 2 p.m. EST, 6 p.m. GMT.
Sonallah Ibrahim’s ‘Ice,’ tr. Margaret Litvin, Makes EBRD Longlist
The €20,000 prize is for both author and translator. Two runners-up and their translators will also receive a prize of €1,000 each.