On Translating the Omani Natural Landscape
May Goes On: (Re)-Introducing May Ziadeh
Forthcoming May 2026: Two Graphic Novels, Powerful Nonfiction
Fiction
From ‘The Country Doctor’s Tale’
At this point in ‘The Country Doctor’s Tale,’ the titular country doctor is returning from a house call when he suddenly discovers political posters everywhere, even on the walls of the clinic.
Ahmed Khaled Tawfik’s ‘The Wall’
“The Wall,” by the massively popular Ahmed Khaled Tawfik (1962-2008) is from his collection “Now I Understand.”
Poetry
Rasha Omran: ‘I Want to Smile’
“I want to step out on my balcony and hang my laughter out on the clothesline, so that passersby can catch hold of it, scale the wall to the fourth floor, and laugh with me.”
Interviews
On Translating the Omani Natural Landscape
Marilyn Booth reflects on her experience translating Zahran Alqasmi’s work and provides insight on greater questions of translation.
Translating Oman
The”Translating Oman” event, hosted by Syracuse University Press, featured a discussion about Omani literature and translation.
On Translating Egyptian Village Life
In this conversation with Neil Hewison, we discuss what brought him to Mohamed Mansi Qandil’s The Country Doctor’s Tale, the pleasures of the Egyptian village novel, Mansi Qandil’s attention to women’s pain, and what makes a “modern classic.”
In Focus
From the archives
‘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.”
Samer Abu Hawwash’s ‘It No Longer Matters If Anyone Loves Us’
‘Resistance and the Palestinian Folk Song’






