Launch Event Today: ‘Gaza! Gaza! Gaza!’
We invite all our readers and supporters around the world to join us at 2 p.m. EST, 7 p.m. UK, 8 p.m. CET, 9 p.m. Cairo/Gaza for the launch of our Spring 2024: GAZA! GAZA! GAZA! issue, available at our store and select bookshops worldwide. Please join us at youtube.com/ArabLitQuarterly ...
Remembering Badr Bin Abdulmohsin, the ‘Poet of Light’
By Moneera Al-Ghadeer My beloved has a smile that humbles the light. Her forehead eclipses the moonlight— If a poet’s passing moves nations, then the most celebrated Saudi poet, Badr Bin Abdulmohsin, has shown us that it can do so with reverence, grandeur, and eloquence, like metaphors in verse. Loss has cast its shadow over the Arabian Peninsula, and Badr Bin Abdulmohsin’s passing on Saturday, May 4, 2024, will be long remembered. Not only are ...
‘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, which accompanies his conversation with journalist Ursula Lindsey about Gaza's literary histories, "A Form of Refuge." This conversation was a collaboration with The Point magazine, where it also appears. Here, as an online companion, we share a second poem by Atef Alshaer, translated by the author. They Prepare for their Weddings By Atef Alshaer Translated ...
Fiction
An Excerpt from Falah Raheem’s ‘Hedgehogs on a Hot Day’
In a recent interview, we asked Iraqi writer Duna Ghali which Iraqi writers she recommends; she pointed us to Falah Raheem, whose Hedgehogs on a Hot Day was published to great acclaim in Arabic in 2012. The novel is available now in ...
New Short Fiction: ‘Holy Wednesday’
As this is a novelette, some readers may prefer to read on a tablet, in PDF or epub form. It’s available free on the ArabLit store. Holy Wednesday By Mahmoud Aboudoma Translated by Sarah Enany “I saw them split open ...
From Duna Ghali’s ‘Orbits of Loneliness’
A few years ago, when we asked Egyptian novelist Miral al-Tahawy for a favorite book in Arabic by a woman writer, she said, “Truth is, there is a long list of Arab women’s work that I’m sure was important in ...
Poetry
‘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, ...
When the War Parts: A Poem from Gaza by Heba Al-Agha
When the War Parts By Heba Al-Agha Translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso I won’t be the same might become a ...
From ALQ: Football Chants from Palestine
In the Fall 2021 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, we focused on FOOTBALL, and especially its many literary manifestations. Among these are the ...
Interviews
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 ...
Sarah Enany on Living — And Making a Living — As a Translator in Egypt
Sarah Enany is a Banipal Prize-winning literary translator (for her translation of Rasha Adly’s The Girl with Braided Hair) and ...
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.”
Reclaiming the Women of Arabic Popular Epics
This look at the women who seem to have disappeared in scholarship about the Arabic popular epics is a re-run from Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth) last year.
For Valentine’s Day: The Many Loves of Nizar Qabbani
Your love has taught me… how to be sad.
And I have needed, for ages
A woman to make me sad
A woman in whose arms I could weep
Like a sparrow,