Sharjah Book Fair Brings Back In-Person Events
The opportunities for personal encounters that book fairs typically provide have been missing since the coronavirus shutdowns began last spring. That’s about to change.
Series Brings Alive Classical Arabic Texts for Young Readers
The Library of Arabic Literature’s new Young Readers series reframes classical Arabic tales and poetry in ways that make them engaging to readers of all ages.
Digital Archive Collects Arabic Book Covers of the 20th Century
The Arabic Book Cover Archive project focuses on book cover designs from the 1940s to 1990s. The goal isn’t to collect pretty images but to provide the raw material for research.
‘Home’: Nine Arab Poets Explore Interior Spaces in a New Bilingual Anthology
The dual-language volume does not aim to be completist or canonical, but it may help amend the dearth of contemporary Arabic poetry in English translation.
Egyptian Translation Center’s New Guidelines Could Stifle Freedom of Thought
The National Center for Translation was created to make knowledge from across the world accessible to Egyptians. Many see its new guidelines as a move to restrict freedom of thought.
A Stateless Poet Finds Her Home and Identity in Literature
Mona Kareem, who will teach at Princeton University this fall, employs her poetic talent to highlight the issues of Kuwait’s Bedoon population.
Arab Women Writers Struggle to Get the Readers They Deserve
Women who write in Arabic face a double problem: They’re translated less often than men, and when they are, their books are often wrongly characterized.
Hazine, a Blog for Scholars of the Islamic World, Reinvents Itself
Launched as an archives review site, Hazine is transitioning into a multilingual platform for reviews, interviews, profiles, digital-humanities tools, and more.
Black Saudi Author Focuses on Neglected History of African Migration and Slavery
Mahmoud Trawri dug into the thorny history of Black Africans and slavery in the Arabian Peninsula while writing Maymouna, published in 2001. The novel is still hard to find in Saudi Arabia.
Thrills and Fantasies: Lighter Reading for a Summer of Disruption
Here’s a recommended reading list of lighter works to take your mind off Covid-19. Many are inspired by the broad sweep of history across the Middle East and North Africa.
