Atheer al-Nashmi: When Love Becomes Both Adversary and Judge
Four Libyan Women Writers You Should Read
The Red Suns, Purple Moons, and Gun-Carrying Mice of Syrian Poet Da’ad Haddad
Fiction
Stealing Sleep, Reclaiming Tomorrow
In the opening pages of The Sleep Thief by Ibtisam Azem (tr. Sinan Antoon), Palestinian protagonist, Gharib Haifawi, recounts how he was dubbed the “sleep thief” by his interrogators during his imprisonment.
‘By Candlelight’: Short Fiction by Latifa al-Zayyat
Part of our focus, this Women in Translation Month (#WiTMonth), is on classic Arabic works by women, especially those at the margins of (or neglected entirely by) critical and readerly attention.
From Zainab Hifni’s ‘I Was Here Yesterday’
‘I Was Here Yesterday; is set between Saudi Arabia and the Florida coast and entangles grief and memory, centering on how the narrator grapples with her mother’s death and the truths about her mother’s life—and her own—that she uncovers.
Poetry
The Red Suns, Purple Moons, and Gun-Carrying Mice of Syrian Poet Da’ad Haddad
“In her poetry world, the sun is red. The moon is purple. Snow is ubiquitous. Winter is eternal.”
Poems of Whiskey and Regret by Rasha Omran
These poems, translated by Phoebe Carter, are from Rasha Omran’s sixth collection, “A Secret Wife of Absence.”
New Poetry in Translation: Sayed Abolela’s ‘Cinema’
This poem is from a forthcoming collection, مصمم معارك, to be published by the General Egyptian Book Organization.
Interviews
Palestinian Sittis and the Inheritance of Memories
In this conversation, Hooda Shawa offers inspiring insight into her experience writing such a personal and powerful novel as well as herself as an author.
On the New Platform, ‘Palestine is Everywhere’
Editors of the anthology Palestine is Everywhere — Skye Arundhati Thomas, Edwin Nasr, and Gloria Habsburg — recently launched a new “Palestine is Everywhere” platform to host a series of monthly commissions, “creating an ongoing space to support and amplify the work of artists, writers, and practitioners from Palestine and the wider region.”
On the Choice to Write in Colloquial Arabic
“Some classical poets feel that the popularity of colloquial writers has nothing to do with the quality of their work, but rather because they have chosen the easier path.”
In Focus
From the archives
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.”
The Story of a Poem: Refaat Alareer’s ‘If I Must Die’
The Red Suns, Purple Moons, and Gun-Carrying Mice of Syrian Poet Da’ad Haddad
“In her poetry world, the sun is red. The moon is purple. Snow is ubiquitous. Winter is eternal.”