Marcia is publishing the first English translation of early 20th century woman of letters and feminist icon May Ziadhe; Ursula has been working on a review of the award-winning Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddine. We also talk about a devastating book based on interviews with Gazan evacuees by the Syrian writer/activist/journalist Samar Yazbek; and a memoir of art and politics, set in Lebanon and France, by Lamia Ziadé.

Show Notes:

You can read about the “Lignes de Faille” Arabic literature conference in Marseille here.

You can sign up to receive May Ziadeh’s Musings of a Young Woman here.

Samar Yazbek’s book of interviews with Gaza survivors is Your Presence is a Danger to Your Life

The new memoir by Lebanese-French graphic artist Lamia Ziadé is Rue de Phénicie. You can read an excerpt here.

Rabih Alameddine’s books include The Angel of History (2014); An Unnecessary Woman (2016); The Wrong End of the Telescope (2021) and The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) (2025)

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Ibtihal Reda Mahmood, editor and translator of the anthology Snow in Amman: An Anthology of Short Stories from Jordan joins us to talk both about the Jordanian literary landscape from the 1940s to now, as well as her personal relationship with Jordanian writers and books. We talk particularly about the iconic feminist and master of the short-story form Basma Nsour, and how Ibtihal came across her work as a pre-teen; the late, gifted, and generous Amjad Nasser, whose work still needs further translation; and the great Abdulrahman Munif’s Story of a City, which describes his childhood in the Jordanian capital of Amman during the 1940s.

SHOW NOTES

Abdulrahman Munif’s Story of a City was translated by Samira Kawar and published by Quartet books in 1997.

There is no book-length collection of Basma El-Nsour’s work in translation, but there are many stories available online: at ArabLit, The Common, and elsewhere.

Amjad Nasser’s incredible poetry collection Petra was translated by Fady Joudah. His Land of No Rain was translated by Jonathan Wright.

The twentieth century Jordanian classics that made the list of the “105 Best Novels of the 20th Century,” as voted by the Arab writers union, were: Sultanah, by Jordanian author Ghalib Halasa, Confessions of a Silencer, by Jordanian writer Mu’nis al-Razzaz, and Essential Pillars, by the Jordanian author Elias Farkouh.

Although many Jordanian books elide place, one novel that shows the landscape of contemporary Jordan is Ma’an Abu Taleb’s All the Battles, which was translated by Robin Moger.

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