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Sentenced to Hope Mar 01, 2019

Show notes

We spend most of this episode discussing the work and life of the Syrian playwright Sa’dallah Wannous, and how strongly it relates to repression, resistance and art in the Arab region today.

SHOW NOTES:

A new Sa’dallah Wannous reader,Sentence to Hope(ed. and trans. Robert Myers and Nada Saab) brings together four translations of plays as well as essays by and interviews with the great Syrian playwright (1941-1996).
Read more about reading Wannous in Syria in Matthew McNaught’s essay “Yarmouk Miniatures” and about Arwa Salih and the Arab left to which he belonged in Ursula’s “Lessons of Defeat: Testimonies of the Arab left.”
The founder of Egypt’s Dar Tanmia Bookshop and Publishing, Khaled Lutfi, was sentenced to five years in a military trial at the beginning of February. A statement of support for Lutfi has been circulating online, in Arabic and English.
The Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji currently lives in the US after serving two years in jail on indecency charges.
The photographer we mention is Mohamed Abu Zeid – Shawkan – who should never have been jailed in the first place and is currently being held unlawfully beyond his release date.

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27: Where Do I Start? Feb 11, 2019

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What should you recommend to someone who is interested in exploring Arabic literature? We tackle this big question this week; we also talk about the authors short-listed on the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and about North African literature in English translation.

Where Do I Start? Feb 11, 2019

Show notes

Show notes:

There are many opinions on where you should start with Arabic literature. Back in 2010, Ursula’s five-to-read-before-you-die were: Memory for Forgetfulness, Mahmoud Darwish; Season of Migration to the North, Tayyeb Saleh; The Trilogy or Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz; Bleeding of the Stone, Ibrahim al-Koni; Youssef Idris’s stories in Arabic.
Theshortlist for the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, for the first time, features more women writers than men. MLQ was already profiling shortlisted writer Shahla Ujayli: outtakes from the interview are on ArabLit, where you can also read a long Q&A with the translator of Ujayli’s A Sky So Close to Us, Michelle Hartman.
The long list of 100 Algerian books available in English translation, put together by Nadia Ghanem also comes with a 6-book starter kit from Dr. Ghanem and MLQ. Next up are Moroccan and Tunisian literatures in translation.

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Bad Parents Jan 26, 2019

Show notes

We're back! And ready to talk about two poets who have moved into prose: the Egyptian Iman Mersal and the Palestinian Mazen Maarouf, who have written books that explore the bonds between children and parents, among other things. We also talk about the Cairo book fair's recent make-over, and about the vibrant but struggling cultural scene in Casablanca.

Show notes

Iman Mersal's How to Mend: Motherhood and Its Ghosts was translated by Robin Moger and published by the Kayfa Ta initiative. It's available from Neel wa Furat and Jamalon and, we hope, from good bookstores everywhere.
Mazen Maarouf's Jokes for the Gunmen, winner of the inaugural Almultaqa Prize for the Arabic Short Story, was translated by Jonathan Wright and published by Granta. You can read the story “Portion of Jam,” from the collection, on the Granta website.
The Cairo International Book Fair (@cairobookfair), which has moved from the Nasr City Fairgrounds to the exhibition center in New Cairo, runs through February 5. Ursula has written about previous iterations here and here.
Casablanca, nid d'artistes just came out from Malika éditions, ed. Kenza Sefri and Leïla Slimani, featuring profiles and work by 115 artists.
Here is a link to the discussion that got the Moroccan cultural NGO Racines in legal trouble.

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25: Lists! Dec 19, 2018

Show notes

Ursula and MLQ look back at notable books from 2018 and at reads they are looking forward to catching up on over the holiday break.

Show notes

‘Tis the season for “best of” lists. Ursula wrote about Notable Books of 2018 From and About the Arab Worldin Al-Fanar; a number of them are books we have discussed on the show. One that we haven’t is Casablanca, Nid d’artistes, ed. Leila Slimani and Kenza Sefrioui.
Marcia was still working to compile the “Arab Authors’ Favorites” list that ArabLit runs every year. Early favorites included Mohamed Kheir’s Afalaat al-‘asabie, Muhairi Huwaidi’s Wa Kan al-Bayt Akhi al-Saba’a, and Mohamed Shoair’s Awlad Haretna: Biography of a Forbidden Novel.
We talked about Shoair’s Biography of a Forbidden Novel, which focuses on Naguib Mahfouz’s Children of Our Alley, and the intimidation of other public intellectuals, particularly Nasr Abu Zeid and Farag Fouda. Shoair’s book is dedicated to Taha Hussein and Nasr Abu Zeid.
Yasmine Rashidi wrote in the New York Times about “How Egypt Crowdsources Censorship.”
Nawal Nasrallah was one of the winners of the $2M Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation, based in Qatar, for her translation of the fourteenth-century Egyptian cookbook Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table.
And, on December 11, Saudi writer Omaima al-Khamis was announced as the winner of this year’s Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, for her historical novel Voyage of the Cranes over the Agate Cities.

Lists! Dec 19, 2018

Show notes

Ursula and MLQ look back at notable books from 2018 and at reads they are looking forward to catching up on over the holiday break.

Show notes

‘Tis the season for “best of” lists. Ursula wrote about Notable Books of 2018 From and About the Arab Worldin Al-Fanar; a number of them are books we have discussed on the show. One that we haven’t is Casablanca, Nid d’artistes, ed. Leila Slimani and Kenza Sefrioui.
Marcia was still working to compile the “Arab Authors’ Favorites” list that ArabLit runs every year. Early favorites included Mohamed Kheir’s Afalaat al-‘asabie, Muhairi Huwaidi’s Wa Kan al-Bayt Akhi al-Saba’a, and Mohamed Shoair’s Awlad Haretna: Biography of a Forbidden Novel.
We talked about Shoair’s Biography of a Forbidden Novel, which focuses on Naguib Mahfouz’s Children of Our Alley, and the intimidation of other public intellectuals, particularly Nasr Abu Zeid and Farag Fouda. Shoair’s book is dedicated to Taha Hussein and Nasr Abu Zeid.
Yasmine Rashidi wrote in the New York Times about “How Egypt Crowdsources Censorship.”
Nawal Nasrallah was one of the winners of the $2M Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation, based in Qatar, for her translation of the fourteenth-century Egyptian cookbook Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table.
And, on December 11, Saudi writer Omaima al-Khamis was announced as the winner of this year’s Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, for her historical novel Voyage of the Cranes over the Agate Cities.

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Writing To Remember Dec 01, 2018

Show notes

This episode is almost entirely 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.

Show notes

Bouanani’s cult-classic novel L’hôpital was re-published in 2012 by DK Editions in Morocco and Editions Verdier in France. Muhammad al-Khudairi’s Arabic translationwas published in 2016. Two of Bounanai’s books have been released this year in English translation: The Shutters(translated by Emma Ramadan) and The Hospital(translated by Lara Vergnaud), both from New Directions Press.
A fragment of Bouanani’s filmwork can be seen online: his film about Casablanca in the 1960s, “6 et 12”, is on YouTube, as is a section of As-Sarab / Mirage. The film-maker Ali Essafi’s documentary about Bouanani is entitled Crossing the Seventh Gate.
Touda Bouanani, Ahmed Bouanani’s daughter and a visual artist, has conserved his work and featured it in her own.
Ursula’s piece on Bouanani in the New York Review of Books is unfortunately pay-walled now.
Marcia should have a piece about the discovery of Naguib Mahfouz’s “lost” manuscript,set to be published December 11 by Dar al-Saqi in Lebanon, forthcoming soon in LitHub. An extended Q&A with translator Roger Allen, agent Yasmina Jraissati, and manuscript-discoverer Mohamed Shoair will follow on ArabLit. The English translation of what’s being called The Whisper of Stars is forthcoming from Saqi Books in 2019.