ArabLit & Komet Kashakeel Open Submissions for 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction Prize
قراءة صوتية عبر الحدود: مسابقة قصص ومضية باللغة العربية ٢٠٢٤ ArabLit is teaming up with كومة كشاكيل│Komet Kashakeel on a new Arabic flash fiction contest, with the support of a "Beyond Literature Borders" grant from the British Council and Speaking Volumes. We're calling Arabic writers from anywhere in the world to submit their very short stories -- fewer than 1000 words -- in any genre. All writers, published and unpublished, are welcome to apply. تتعاون ...
Forthcoming June 2024: Classic Fiction, Poetry of Trauma, Short Fiction, & More
As always, if you know of books we've missed, please put them in the comments or email us at info@arablit.org. A Nose and Three Eyes, by Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, tr. Jonathan Smolin (Hoopoe Fiction) From the publisher: It is 1950s Cairo and 16-year-old Amina is engaged to a much older man. Despite all the excitement of the wedding preparations, Amina is not looking forward to her nuptials. And it is not because of the age gap ...
New Short Fiction: Suheir Daoud’s ‘The Miracle’
The Miracle By Suheir Daoud Translated by Leonie Rau I was born after October 7, under the rubble. The cold was severe, and my mother’s voice was the only thing that covered me. I was about to start wailing, like any child, but when I heard my mother’s voice calling out for me and crying, I decided never to cry in my life. I held my mother’s hand instead of her holding mine—she was dying ...
Fiction
New Short Fiction: Suheir Daoud’s ‘The Miracle’
The Miracle By Suheir Daoud Translated by Leonie Rau I was born after October 7, under the rubble. The cold was severe, and my mother’s voice was the only thing that covered me. I was about to start wailing, like ...
From Reem al-Kamali’s ‘Rose’s Diaries’
Yesterday, we talked with Chip Rossetti about his translation of Reem Al Kamali’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction-shortlisted Rose’s Diaries. Today, we have an excerpt from the middle of the novel, where the narrator recalls her lost nuclear family. 58. I ...
From Osama al-Eissa’s ‘The Madmen of Bethlehem’
Osama al-Eissa was shortlisted for this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction, for his The Seventh Heaven of Jerusalem, awarded to fellow Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji for his fourth novel, A Mask, the Color of the Sky. Al-Eissa’s Madmen of ...
Poetry
‘Every Time I Leave the House’: New Poetry by Haidar al-Ghazali
This poem was inadvertently left out of the THIS MOMENT section of ArabLit Quarterly’s “Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!” section. We will be correcting ...
‘Houses That Cling to the Tongue’: New Poetry by Mahmoud Kiralla
Houses That Cling to the Tongue By Mahmoud Kiralla Translated by Tamer Fathy Mabrouk When I was young, the train ...
‘They Prepare for their Weddings’: New Poetry by Atef Alshaer
We have one poem by Atef Alshaer in the Spring 2024 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, in partnership with Majalla 28, ...
Interviews
On Translating a Novel of Might-have-beens in ’60s Dubai
New publishing house ELF Publishing has brought out Emirati author Reem Al Kamali’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction-shortlisted Rose’s Diaries ...
Shakir Mustafa on the Obstacles to Translating Iraqi Literature into English
Shakir Mustafa was a scholar focused on Irish literature and drama in 2003 and 2004 when the invasion and occupation ...
Recommendations: On the New Wave of Memoirs from Iraq
Editor’s note: Publishers who are interested in Iraqi literatures will find more in our May Publishers Newsletter, out on May ...
Country Focus
From the archives
14th-Century Cookbook ‘Profoundly Rich Resource for Egyptian Culinary Heritage’
“Our anonymous author was most probably a gourmet cook himself but not necessarily a professional cook. He might have had a profession like those people to support his family, and wrote about cooking, his passion.”
Another Road for Syrian Poetry
“The divide among poets has added a diaspora to the spatial diaspora, which scattered Syrians around the world.”
Alexander Key: On Domesticating Al-Jurjani 110%
“I’m trying to translate al-Jurjani so that he sounds like a literary critic writing in English, writing in his native language. I don’t want the reader of al-Jurjani’s experience with metaphor to think this guy is foreign – because al-Jurjani didn’t think he was foreign.”