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“It was five o’clock in the morning. The station, faintly illuminated by dim lamps, lay beneath a murky canopy of locomotive smoke. Qasim stood beside the steps of one of the coaches, gazing at the station clock.”

This excerpt appeared in the FOOTBALL issue of ArabLit Quarterly, which you can still get in print and digital. 

This week, we’re celebrating the World Cup with work from our Fall 2021 FOOTBALL issue.

This poem is from a forthcoming collection,  مصمم معارك, to be published by the General Egyptian Book Organization.

In memory of the July 2025 massacres in Sweida, Syria.

In celebration of the World Cup, a football chant from Egypt.

“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.”

Here, Leri Price talks about the referred trauma (and guilt) of translating testimonies from a genocide, how she worked with translators bringing the book into other languages, and the particular challenges of translating this book.

Today, Kawthar al-Jahmi talks about her writing and reading journeys, the role of literary prizes, submitting her novel to the publisher a day before giving birth, and developing a writing practice while working and raising children.

“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.”