Lit & Found: An Excerpt from Hawra Nadawi’s ‘Qismet’
Both novels, as the postscript on Y’alla notes, deal with themes of identity and alienation.
#WITMonth
9 Short Stories by Palestinian Women, in Translation
#WiTMonth lists are necessarily idiosyncratic, reflecting not only the tastes and knowledge of the list-makers, but also what’s available in translation. In this case, our lists also reflect what’s accessible online.
Lit & Found: Three Poems by Taghrid Abdelal
“I will look at your back / if you come down a little closer.”
‘If There is a New Feeling, There Must Be a New Word’: A Talk with Nora Amin
” In order to express what, in her view, has not been spoken about before in Arabic literature—women’s perspective on sexuality, in its various forms, from lust to sexual trauma—the author saw the need to invent her own language, which impacts readers with its clarity and sobriety.”
Women in Translation Month: 10 New Books for 2022
“At some point you start to feel very patronised.”
10 Poems for ‘Medieval Femme,’ Inspired by al-Khansa
“Like music from the courts of the Abbasid Caliphate after a decadent cybernetic makeover.”
A Look Back: Women in Translation Month 2021
“We ran poetry by established and emerging poets — and talked about how women’s poetry in Arabic has changed since the ’90s — published a short story from Iraq, rounded up lists of short stories available online, spoke to writers and scholars, and focused our “Lit & Found” feature on work by women.”
Searching for the Funambulists: Lisa Marchi on Women Poets of the Arab Diaspora
“This is an art that is not meant for the elites, it is meant for the people in the streets. People, I should add, who are perhaps a bit disheartened but still alert, and whose gaze is not fixed on the ground but looks up towards the sky.”
New Poetry: Rym Jalil’s ‘My Mother’s Kitchen’
“Every day I lie and say / I know this place. / My mother’s kitchen / brims with afflictions / I must pretend to befriend it / we all know it can have only one master / from its beginning to its end”