Authors

[This article first appeared on the author’s blog. The Modern Language Association (MLA) will be voting on a resolution calling for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions at its upcoming

An Open Letter to Participants in the Seventh Annual International Translation Conference

In light of the continued imprisonment of Qatari poet

Last spring, Bloomsbury published Mai Al-Nakib’s debut work of fiction,

Beneath the walls, walls.
And beneath them, walls.
Ur, Jericho, Ninevah, Nimrud—
On the debris where the sighs of lovers went to die
Where chattered then vanished the teeth of captives, stripped bare
There, now are hills that bloom each spring
Now home to crickets ..

[The late Palestinian poet, Samih al-Qasim, was also a talented essayist, writing regularly in the Arabic-language press of Palestine/Israel. He was also a compelling orator and correspondent. The collection of his letters with Mahmoud Darwish is a uniquely great accomplishment of modern epi..

1. “RAFAH’S CHILDREN” (1971)

To the one who digs his path through the wounds of millions

To he whose tanks crush all the roses in the garden

Who breaks windows in the night

Who sets fire to a garden and museum and sings of freedom.

Who stomps on songbir..

Poetry cannot serve as an emotional bandage for the blood and guts of warfare; such an industry is doomed to dishonor the dead as well as the living. — Yusef Komunyakaa

 At Kerak Citadel

Always, at sunset, the castle walls begin to breathe.

The war is over—it has been two or twenty centuries now.

But then sudden..

I spent the last few afternoons and evenings with my wife`s cousins---dynamic, generous, and patient people from Baghdad who only recently---after eight years of one war, ten years of sanctions, and ten years of violent occupation---decided to permanently resettle in Amman. Besides eating and dr..

Now that ISIS is rattling across Iraq`s provinces, we can expect the cheerleaders of US military intervention to return to the podium. Some will say that mi..

Sonallah Ibrahim. al-Jalid [Ice]. Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al-Jadida, 2011.

Following the protests and coup of last summer, many of Egypt’s leading literary figures defected to the ..

Ahmed Sabry Abul-Futuh, Agendat Sayyid al-Ahl. Cairo: Dar El-Ain, 2012.

Thug Revolution

Again, re..

Mona Prince, Revolution is My Name. Cairo: n.p., 2012.

Reading, ’Riting, Revolution

Reading Egyptian literature this week might seem..

[The following article is part of a Jadaliyya roundtable on “The Language of Revolution in Egypt.” It features contributions by Paul Sedra, Robert Spr..