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The Not So Simple Past Feb 11, 2020

Show notes

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This episode focuses on Driss Chraibi's The Simple Past (Le Passé Simple), a Moroccan novel about a very angry young man in revolt against his father's tyranny and the hypocrisies of his colonial education. Back in 1954, it was compared to an explosion – and it still packs a punch today.

Show Notes:

The Simple Past was newly re-issued from NYRB Classics in Hugh A. Harter's 1990 translation, with a new introduction from Adam Shatz. Shatz's introduction is available online at the NYR Daily.

Excerpts from Chraibi's interview with Federico Arbós can be found at Fragmentos de la entrevista con Federico Arbós, El Mundo/La Esfera, 28/3/92.

This episode also references Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy and the father figure of Si Sayyed; Waguih Ghali's Beer in the Snooker Club; and Tayib Saleh's Season of Migration to the North.

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The Elephant Is The Room Jan 29, 2020

Show notes

We recorded this episode in Cairo with author, translator, and Mada Masr culture editor Yasmine Zohdi. We talked about making art in difficult and precarious times; how to acknowledge the political context; censorship and self-censorship.

“What we talk about when we talk about trees,” by Yasmine Zohdi, ran in Mada Masr in December of last year.

We also spoke about the shrinking of cultural spaces in Cairo.

Zohdi also translates, including her husband Muhammad al-Hajj's beautiful Nobody Mourns the City's Cats.

MLQ was in Cairo for the ARCE symposium on popular culture. Essays from and inspired by the symposium will be appearing at The Maydan.

An excerpt of the Egyptian novel Prizes for Heroes was translated as part of Mada Masr's translation series.

The Egyptian film Yomeddine (“Judgement Day”) was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Writing to Remember Jan 14, 2020

Show notes

This episode is dedicated to the work of the Moroccan film-maker, novelist, artist, and poet Ahmed Bouanani – much of which has yet to be released, and much of which was censored or destroyed in his own life.

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Work-Lit Balance Jan 03, 2020

Show notes

We talk about passion projects, the value of intellectual labor, and the ups and downs of making a living (sort of) writing about books.

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Top Five Dec 18, 2019

Show notes

We discuss some of our favorite books from the past year, and some titles we're excited to get our hands on soon.

Show Notes

Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, ed. Zahra Hankir
Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, tr. Sinan Antoon
Palestine + 100, ed. Basma Ghalayini
Palestine as Metaphor, by Mahmoud Darwish, tr. Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché
Room 304 or How I Hid from My Dear Father for 35 Years by Amr Ezzat, tr. Nora Amin and Yasmine Zohdi
Souls of Edo, by Stella Gaitano, is available from Rafiki Printing and Publishing
Celestial Bodies, by Jokha al-Harthi, tr. Marilyn Booth; you can watch the clip from their CNN interview on Twitter.
Sentence to Hope: A Sa'dallah Wannous Reader by Sa'dallah Wannous, tr. Nada Saab and Robert Myers
Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide by Mohamed Elshahed
The Magnificent Conman of Cairo by Adel Kamel, tr. Waleed Almusharaf
Impostures by al-Hariri, translated by Michael Cooperson

· In Pursuit of Enayat al-Zayat by Iman Mersal

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The Revolution While Dreaming Dec 04, 2019

Show notes

We talk about a newly released collection of five compelling and highly quotable interviews with the great late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, titled Palestine as Metaphor, translated by Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché. We also talk about recent protests in Lebanon and how they are being written about in Lebanese and international media, as well as the frightening day when the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr’s officeswere raided and editors detained. (All of Mada’s staff has now been released). This episode was partly recorded and produced in the offices of the Sowt network.

SHOW NOTES

The Great Lebanese Ponzi Scheme by Lina Mounzer
The Lebanese Street Asks: ‘Which Is Stronger, Sect or Hunger?’ by Ursula Lindsey
On Power, Machines, and Departures: Running Mada Masr in Today’s Egypt by Lina Attalah.
A few things you might like to know about us, by Lina Attalah
Palestine as Metaphorby Mahmoud Darwish, tr. Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché

Palestine as Metaphor By Mahmoud Darwish In the Presence of Absence By Mahmoud Darwish Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Literature of the Middle East) By Mahmoud Darwish

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Writers Are Not Magic Nov 20, 2019

Show notes

In the first half of the episode, we paid tribute to Jordanian poet, activist, novelist, travel writer, and editor Amjad Nasser (1955-2019), who died at the end of October. In the second, we talked about the political space occupied by Moroccan-French writers Tahar Ben Jelloun and Leïla Slimani, particularly in the wake of the trial against—and pardon of—Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni over an alleged abortion. What is a writer’s responsibility in a society, or between societies? And what about those of us who talk about, report on, and frame literature? (This episode partly recorded and produced in the offices of the Sowt network).

SHOW NOTES

A short English-language tribute to Amjad Nasser on ArabLit, and a longer one in Arabic on 7iber.
Nassar’s recent poems are available on Facebookbutnot yet in translation.Other poems have been translated by Sinan Antoon and Fady Joudahand by the Poetry Translation Center.
The letter in Le Monde, co-composed by Slimani, « Nous, citoyennes et citoyens marocains, déclarons que nous sommes hors la loi,» and also the pieces about Slimani in The New Yorkerand LitHub. Since we aired the episode, another fawning profile of Slimanihas been published in Le Monde.
Tahar Ben Jelloun, writing in Le Point: “Vous, obscurantistes, êtes en train de prendre le Maroc de la modernité en otage.”
Also the criticism of both writers by Omar Brousky in Orient XXI.
Ursula’s editorial in the New York Timesabout the Hajar Raissouni case.
Ben Jelloun’s On Terrorism: Conversations with My Daughterwill be coming to English in February 2020.

Land of No Rain By Amjad Nasser The Perfect Nanny: A Novel By Leila Slimani

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38: "Insufficiently Westernized" Nov 06, 2019

Show notes

We discuss two novels set in Iraq -- one featuring a despondent policeman, and one featuring a determined grandma and her donkey. Also, how John Updike once dismissed the great Saudi writer Abdelrahman Mounif as "insufficiently Westernized" to write a novel.

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