New Short Fiction from Syria: ‘A Bird with a Broken Wing’
Editor's note: This story -- one of the finalists for the 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction Prize, co-run by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel -- is set to appear in a 2025 publication. However, author Imad Saad requested that, because of the current extraordinary events in Syria, it could appear early. A Bird with a Broken Wing By Imad Saad Translated by Mandy McClure I don’t know why, but every time I came out of an interview ...
A Look Back: Arabic Literature Published in Translation in 2024
By ArabLit Staff This year, we have brought lists of literary works translated from Arabic to English, as well as to French, German, Malayalam, and to Portuguese. Thanks to the volunteers who assembled these lists, which may not be comprehensive. Translated from Arabic to English Poetry collections Palestinian, by Ibrahim Nasrallah, tr. Huda Fakhreddine (World Poetry Editions) The Universe, All At Once, by Salim Barakat, tr. Huda Fakhreddine (Seagull Books) No One Will Know You ...
Samah Hasanain’s ‘Seven Moments in Gaza’
Seven Moments in Gaza By Samah Hasanain Translated by Enas Eltorky * The missile scrapes my memory. I’ve already been struck by death, I die many times before my death. I’m amazed by the hope that still persists within me, I tell it firmly: “I’m dead.” It shakes its head in denial. I know I'm a liar, and that I have plenty of room to dream and live. * I never imagined it hanging as ...
Fiction
New Short Fiction from Syria: ‘A Bird with a Broken Wing’
Editor’s note: This story — one of the finalists for the 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction Prize, co-run by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel — is set to appear in a 2025 publication. However, author Imad Saad requested that, because of the ...
Short Fiction by Ghassan al-Jibai: ‘Nails’
Author and dramatist Ghassan al-Jibai’s مسامير appeared in Arabic in Al-Araby al-Jadeed and on ArabLit in English translation in 2022, after the author’s death, in celebration of his ife and work. Nails By Ghassan al-Jibai Translated by Ghada Alatrash It was necessary ...
From Omar Khalifah’s ‘Sand-Catcher’: Mutarjima’s Maqlouba
It’s publication day for Omar Khalifah’s fast-paced, satiric, & thrilling debut novel, Sand-Catcher, translated by Barbara Romaine. In this excerpt, one of the core characters, the journalist known only as Mutarjima (or The Translator), introduces herself. From Sand-Catcher By Omar ...
Poetry
New Poetry by Ramzi Salem: ‘Orange Death’
The poem “موت برتقالي” originally appeared in al-Araby al-Jadeed on December 5, 2024. Orange Death By Ramzi Salem I love ...
From Mahmoud Abu Hashhash’s ‘Violation’
Poems from Violation By Mahmoud Abu Hashhash Translated by Wiam El-Tamami My friends, faraway and safe in their houses and ...
New Poetry by Tamer Kuhial
Joy Garnett: Flood (5), 2006, oil on canvas, 54×60 inches Behind the Veil By Tamer Kuhial Translated by Oumeima Mouelhi ...
Interviews
Flash Fiction Questionnaire: With Laila Hashemi
For our forthcoming bilingual publication — which will feature the fifteen short stories shortlisted for the 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction ...
Authors, Scholars, and Translators Look Back: On Radwa Ashour’s ‘Granada’
Ten years after the death of the great Radwa Ashour (1946-2014), AUC Press has finally published Ashour’s complete Granada trilogy ...
Flash Fiction Questionnaire: With Haidara Assad
For our forthcoming bilingual publication — which will feature the fifteen short stories shortlisted for the 2024 Arabic Flash Fiction ...
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.”
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,
‘When Darkness Falls’: On the Shortened, Brilliant Life of Iraqi Author Hayat Sharara
“The word eib rings in my head, it is eib to love, to sing, to get sick, to divorce, to show your emotions…and.…and. I felt these social chains were burdening me with fear, despair, and confusion, and I almost abandoned work on the book, but when I looked at the materials that I had collected, I knew that if I didn’t publish it now, it would never be published.”