A Look Back: Iconic Egyptian Writer Ihsan Abdel Kouddous
Yesterday, Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s A Nose and Three Eyes appeared from Hoopoe Fiction, in Jonathan Smolin’s translation. In the foreword, which appeared yesterday on ArabLit, Hanan al-Shaykh writes about her relationship with the iconic Egyptian writer. This marks only the second time Abdel Kouddous (1919-1990), one of the most popular Egyptian authors of the twentieth century, has seen a book in wide English release. The first, I Do Not Sleep, was released in 2022. It was ...
Hanan al-Shaykh on Romance, Writing, & Ihsan Abdel Kouddous
It's publication day for iconic Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Kouddous's A Nose and Three Eyes, translated by Jonathan Smolin. In this foreword to the translation, Hanan Al-Shaykh reflects on her romantic relationship with Kouddous and the insights that relationship offers into A Nose and Three Eyes. Beyond the details of their much-gossiped-about romantic relationship and the inspiration that it offered both writers, Al-Shaykh writes on the meaning of freedom, the process of fictionalizing a person, ...
New Poetry in Translation: Yahya Ashour’s ‘When a Missile Lands’
This poem appeared in the "THIS MOMENT" section of our Gaza! Gaza! Gaza! issue, produced together with Majalla 28. When a Missile Lands By Yahya Ashour Translated by Khaled Rajeh When a missile lands by my house I hope that in its haste it can see that I have long braced myself in a grave dug by fear and not a bed When the missile lands I say, finally, death has come but death, to ...
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
New Poetry in Translation: Yahya Ashour’s ‘When a Missile Lands’
This poem appeared in the “THIS MOMENT” section of our Gaza! Gaza! Gaza! issue, produced together with Majalla 28. When ...
‘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 ...
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
A Talk with Poet Golan Haji: ‘Languages Never Draw Geographical Boundaries’
” Jaziri wrote poetry with one set of alphabets which at that time were used in four languages: Kurdish, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Sometimes, he used the four languages in one couplet. His poems are still recited and sung by Kurds. That coexistence of languages was quite natural, the alluring music was convincing, although I sometimes understood almost nothing.”
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,
Jonathan Smolin on the Relationship Between Ihsan Abdel Kouddous’s Politics and His Novels
“My book really is an examination of how he participated in the coup ,and how he believed fundamentally that the Free Officers were going to install democracy, and—once he realized that they were actually installing military dictatorship—the way he dissented, in the editorials and in person, the way that he was jailed, and the way he turned to fiction to express his dissent directly to Nasser.”