Music Articles (Lyrics)
I could see the movements of the shoulders, the knees, and the feet. The poems of this collection are something like tributes: to his wife Radwa Ashour, to his family, to Mahmoud Darwish, and even to trees. And I was enchanted by how he portrayed it, how he built a whole story, and how he
Continue reading ‘She Stretched Out Her Hand’: A Translator’s Tribute to Mourid Barghouti
/ (Did anyone see her?).” Read the whole poem at The Baffler. It tells us that, in the contemporary novel, Finding out who the killer is / is not the point of the murder/ in the opening scene.” Later on, with her characteristic sympathy and wit: “The female protagonist visits him in the mornings,
Continue reading Friday Finds: ‘A Contemporary Novel’ by Maya Abu al-Hayat & Five More
Part playtext, part novel, part political essay, part poem, this insurrection of a book takes as its starting point the devastating 1960 earthquake that struck the Moroccan city. You can hear more about it in a special “Aftershocks” episode of Bulaq. The winning translators will receive a $2,500 cash prize each. And Algerian poet Samira Negrouche’s
Continue reading Translations of 3 Maghrebi Works Longlisted for 2021 NTA Poetry Awards
Death had found one of the scraps on the street and called me. His escape, struggle, displacement, and asylum in Turkey came to inform many of the stories he later wrote. She was born in Syria in 1979 and currently resides in Leeds. My mother… As always, I had created a dream and let it
Continue reading Mustafa Taj Aldeen Almosa: ‘My Mother is a Terrorist Gang’
Translation copyright © 2022 by Fady Joudah. * From You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2022). You will hear and taste her laughter and also yours. * My Laugh I’m exhausted from smuggling my laugh out of my psychology, smuggling my
I witness the atrocities of occupation. This and more below: Lists Women in Translation Month: 10 Books for 2021 Poet Iman Mersal talked about the difficulty of how, when she wrote about Enayat al-Zayyat, suddenly al-Zayyat became singular, a writer with a new cult following. Few novels written by Algerian women have been translated (to English or
Continue reading A Look Back: Women in Translation Month 2021
It goes back to the medieval time. Now, I must say there is a younger generation of translators and they are kind of more daring in their choices. LM: I had almost completed my manuscript by the end of the 2019. Some authorities in the past banned these street artists. I am not denying this
Continue reading Searching for the Funambulists: Lisa Marchi on Women Poets of the Arab Diaspora
Submit your entries to bahrmag@gmail.com and find more information on their website. Submissions may consist of 3–5 poems or up to 5 pages of prose, all attached in one document. Based in South West Asia and North Africa, we accept submissions from around the world though we champion this region’s creators and prioritise their work.
The film was made by Lizzie Treu and Eloïse Fagard and offers subtitles in a number of languages. Lit & Found: The Documentary ‘Mujeres Árabes Lápiz en Mano’ Four young comix artists from four countries talk about their work: This short 29-minute documentary takes the viewer into the lives, studios, and work of four leading
Continue reading Lit & Found: The Documentary ‘Mujeres Árabes Lápiz en Mano’
It would be too much to be expelled from your kingdom. كل يوم اضحك على نفسي وأقول عارفاه مطبخ امي المآسي مش سيعاه خريطته معقدة ومفزلكة وعليه ضابط مرور لو انحنيت قصاده ممكن تاخد تأشيرة عبور Every day I lie and say I know this place. I plump my soul, give her gifts galore. *
Continue reading New Poetry: Rym Jalil’s ‘My Mother’s Kitchen’
He adjusted his collar and cleared his throat, to make sure that his voice would be loud enough. “King of Cups” opens: I shuffle the deck of tarot cards and deal three of them onto the table More by Abbas, in Guthrie’s translation: “The Gist of It,” “Statement of Absolute Hatred,” and “Falling
Continue reading 9 Short Stories by Syrian Women, in Translation
Listen to the Iman Mersal episode of Bulaq (English) Listen to the Iman Mersal episode of Maqsouda (Arabic) Poetry by Iman Mersal, in translation by Robyn Creswell: Some things escaped me Respect for Marx It seems I inherit the dead Black Fingers Map Store The Idea of Houses Raising a Glass With an Arab
Continue reading #WiTMonth Podcasts: Poetry and More with Iman Mersal
The judge decided, however, that the fine was not high enough. Me: No. Who am I to go against evolution? To be imprisoned inside a house was much better than being in one of what I called the “white houses” of the government apparatus. Yet I could not let go of my hair, no matter
Continue reading Fiction from the Magazine: Raghad Qasim’s ‘Hair or No Hair’
We therefore imagine this as a contribution to the rich body of work focusing on marginalised, subaltern and radical knowledges, movements and figures, as well as to what thinking about anticolonialism from feminist spaces can tell us about past, present and future. It aims to provide an incentive for publishers, authors, and illustrators to publish
Continue reading Sunday Submissions: Kohl Journal & Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature
No one could even talk frankly about it and accusations arose as a way to deter anyone who tried to highlight the crimes.The novel was there, living and maturing day by day. I suddenly found my head swinging through the air. My hand was crushed under someone’s boot, along with Emad’s arm. Here Is a
Continue reading Lit & Found: An Excerpt of Basma Abdel Aziz’s ‘Here Is a Body’
When writing a short story, because it is short, I spend more time crafting and enjoying the language. In Dreams of Freedom we witness her arrest, interrogation and torture and share her reflection on struggle, justice, country and comrades. How much did you have a back-and-forth with Wen-Chin Ouyang during the process of translating the
Continue reading Haifa Zangana on Translation as Revisiting the Past
The killers were given distinctive details to ensure that the story born would be exciting, that trees and tongues would pass it on. Raph Cormack, and she spoke about storycraft with ArabLit. It opens: Every morning he shaves his beard so spider legs fall, fill the sink and block the plug hole. Miral Al-Tahawy’s “The
Continue reading 9 Short Stories by Egyptian Women, in Translation
In The Algerian women of the Castle of Amboise, Chouati has reconstructed the story of the women and children who were imprisoned with the Emir, and who had fought by his side, included his wives, and his sisters-in-law. To make time for writing, while still paying the bills, she quits her job in publishing and
Continue reading 30 Reads: A Month of Algerian Literature by Women
She currently works in the book industry, and her influential youtube channel about books, Dodet Kotob, has more than 100,000 subscribers. In early 2019, she debuted a podcast on international women writers, and in November of the same year, the second season on famous fictional characters was released. We re-run it here for Women in
Continue reading Poetry in Translation: Nada Elshabrawy’s ‘In a Bad Movie’
Submissions must, among other requirements: be in Arabic or Englishbe in .doc format with the file named with “title_city”include a Google Maps hyperlink of where your story takes placedouble-spaced, in a 12pt easy-to-read font See their website for the full submission guidelines and more info about the prize and submit your story by August 31,
Continue reading Sunday Submissions: Two Prizes & A Translator’s Bursary