Sufi Noir

Emily Drumsta on Translating Mahfouz’s ‘Sufi Noir’

“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!”Continue Reading

An Excerpt from Faleeha Hassan’s ‘War And Me’
“From the events I recount in this memoir, you will understand that next to my name in the Unknown World or beside it at the moment I was born, the only comment inscribed must have been: ‘Faleeha Hassan will coexist with war for most of the years of her life.'”
Sudanese Writer Reem Gaafar Makes 2023 Island Prize Longlist
Organizers have announced the longlist for the 2023 Island Prize for a Debut Novel from Africa.
Rewriting National History from a Personal Perspective: Hiyem Cheurfa on Arab Women’s Life Writing
This March, Hiyem Cheurfa’s new book Contemporary Arab Women’s Life Writing and the Politics of Resistance appeared as part of Edinburgh Studies in Modern Arabic Literature series. In it, Cheurfa takes us on a journey through a number of women’s memoirs, written in the context of twenty-first century uprisings. In this conversation, the author talks about the challenges and the difficulties of writing this book and how the texts she studied changed her life.
Lit & Found: ‘Sudanese Novels Through Time’
Over at Kotobli, they have posted a new list; this time, of Sudanese novels through time. The list was curated by Sudanese-American writer Razan Idris.