#featuredal2

Goodbye, Hello: The BEGIN AGAIN issue of ArabLit Quarterly

You can order the Fall 2022 WEDDINGS issue of ArabLit Quarterly in print via GumRoad and Amazon; digitally on GumRoad or Exact Editions; with issues forthcoming at the very best bookshops. Beginnings and endings are semi-fictional states, sharp edges that help us make sense of all the light and sound and magic flooding into our senses by placing boundaries between one thing and another. And…

By Fadi Azzam Translated by Ghada Alatrash * On the underground I sit and contemplate the ceiling. London passes over me. * The roots of trees have not yet reached my train car. The graveyards are raised above the tunnels. * From below The city is peaceful. * The screeching of wheels against the winding steel rails  Resembles that of ache of a heart in countries shattered by barrel…

INTRODUCING ‘Out of Time: The Collected Short Stories of Samira Azzam’

Today, we are launching our first community-supported translation: Ranya Abdelrahman’s translation of thirty-one selected stories by the great cult-classic Palestinian writer Samira Azzam. Thanks to our supporters on Patreon and elsewhere for making this happen. You can find the book on Amazon (US, UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, UAE, etc.) and Gumroad. On Gumroad, the book it as a 20% launch-week…

A Conversation with Hadiya Hussein and Barbara Romaine about ‘Waiting for the Past’

By M Lynx Qualey Hadiya Hussein’s Waiting for the Past was one of our #WiTMonth “Translate This” titles in 2020, and appeared this October, in Barbara Romaine’s translation, from Syracuse University Press. Translator Barbara Romaine describes the premise of the book: Narjis, the novel’s protagonist, under surveillance by the authorities, has sneaked out of Baghdad against orders. She is on a…

Newly Translated Fiction: Emile Habibi’s ‘At Last the Almond Blossomed’

At Last the Almond Blossomed By Emile Habibi Translated by Salma Harland …………………………….Take me back, spring, …………………………….To my homeland, …………………………….Even as a flower …………………………….– A song by Fairuz “During the romantic years of my youth, I read Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I idolized Sydney Carton, who gave up his life to save the husband of the woman he loved by taking his place in the…

Shortlist of 2022 ArabLit Story Prize Features Dark Humor, Rupturing Selves, & Beautifully Flowing Long Sentences

NOVEMBER 15, 2022 — We at ArabLit are delighted to announce that this year’s judges have selected four stories for the shortlist of the 2022 ArabLit Story Prize, by four writers from four countries: Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and Libya. The prize this year had thirty-nine complete submissions from authors and translators all over the world. In a meeting that took place over Zoom and email, the three…

New Poetry from Ghassan Al-Jibai: ‘You Call It a Grave, I Call It a Flowerpot’

By Ghassan Al-Jibai Translated by Ghada Alatrash I am as you’ve always known me Arms crossed over my chest Like a stone bridge Lying on my eternal back Putting my feet up Dirt fills my mouth and eyes And the smile never leaves me. I do not speak—I do not see your beloved faces— But I hear you breathing above the soil And I feel the roots of chrysanthemums As they suck the dampness…

From Suleiman Naguib’s 1923 ‘Memoirs of a Coachman’

Translator’s Note By Chloe Bordewich Memoirs of a Coachman [Mudhakkirat ʿArbagi] tells us the story of Egypt’s 1919 revolution from the margins. Our narrator, Hanafi Abu Mahmud, is chauffeur to the rich and well-connected—a man whose fortunes remain bound to the horse even as the automobile takes over Cairo’s streets. But this “memoir” is not quite what it seems. The author was not a coachman,…