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)

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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.

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Key is a new online publication dedicated to covering Palestine as “the core issue at the heart of the modern world.” We’re joined by its editor-in-chief, Sara Yasin, former managing editor of the LA Times. The Key is an outgrowth of PalFest, an annual traveling literature festival that gathers Palestinian and international writers in Palestine.

You can find The Key at thekeymagazine.com

We talk about Lama Zuhair Khouri’s essay “The Conscripted Container” and Sara reads a poem by Tamara Nasr.

We encourage you to become a subscriber and supporter of The Key, which you can do at their website.

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Egyptian feminist writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi always spoke her mind. Her early books were explosive testimonials, based on her medical practice and personal experience, about sexual double standards and the abuses women faced because of them. She went on to write many more books, including novels, plays and several memoirs. Over the course of her life she was jailed, censored, fired, admired, and attacked by Islamists as an unbeliever. She is still one of the best-known and most translated Arab women writers.

Some of the books discussed in this episode include: The Hidden Face of Eve, The Fall of the Imam, Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, Woman at Point Zero, Daughter of Isis and Walking Through Fire.

Ursula wrote about El Saadawy recently for The New York Review of Books.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode from a few years ago, we wandered through Arabic poetry and prose and talked about many different forms of literary love: regretful love, unreciprocated love, bad love, vengeful love, liberating love, married love.

We read this poem by Núra al-Hawshán:

“O eyes, pour me the clearest, freshest tears

And when the fresh part’s over, pour me the dregs.

O eyes, gaze at his harvest and guard it.

Keep watch upon his water-camels, look at his well.

If he passes me on the road

I can’t speak to him.

O God, such affliction

And utter calamity!

Whoever desires us

We scorn to desire,

And whom we desire

Feeble fate does not deliver.”

The Núra al-Hawshán poem, translated by Moneera al-Ghadeer, has a modern musical adaptation on YouTube produced by Majed Al Esa.

Yasmine Seale’s translation of Ulayya Bint El Mahdi. This poem and others were set to music on the album “Medieval Femme.”

Do’a al-Karawan (“The Nightingale’s Prayer”) by Taha Hussein

I Do Not Sleep, Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, trans. Jonathan Smolin

The Cairo Trilogy, Naguib Mahfouz (1956-57)

Al-Bab al-Maftouh (The Open Door) Latifa al-Zayyat, trans. Marilyn Booth (1960)

All That I Want to Forget, by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated by Michele Henjum.

Rita and the Rifle, Mahmoud Darwish, made into a song by Marcel Khalife.

Ode to My Husband, Who Brings the Music by Zeina Hashem Beck

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Egypt’s January 25 revolution was 15 years ago. Since then many of its young leaders have been persecuted and the history of what happened distorted or denied. After spending over a decade in prison, the activist and writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah was finally released from prison in September, and allowed to travel outside Egypt in December. We are re-running an episode we did about Alaa’s 2021 book You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, and other writing on the Egyptian uprising and its aftermath.

Show Notes

Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s You Have Not Yet Been Defeated was translated by a collective, and is out from Fizcarraldo Editions in the UK. A US edition is forthcoming in March 2022 from Seven Stories Press. There is also an Italian translation by Monica Ruocco.

Ahmed Douma’s second poetry collection, Curly, was set for release in September 2021 by Dar Maraya. But on the eve of its publication, state security officials confiscated copies of the book. Read Elliott Colla and Ahmed Hassan’s co-translations of a poem from this collection, and an excerpt from Douma’s “Blasphemy,” on ArabLit.

Basma Abdelaziz’s Here is a Body, which chronicles the Rabaa massacre and its aftermath, was published in Jonathan Wright’s translation by Hoopoe Fiction. You can read an excerpt on the Hoopoe website.

Also, join our #bulaqbookquiz for a chance to win a release from one of ten participating publishers. Send your answers to bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ursula traveled to Paris to talk to Lebanese novelist Hoda Barakat about writing in Arabic while living at a distance from home; listening to the voices of characters who are destined to defeat; and starting each of her books with a question.

This podcast is produced in collaboration with the Sheikh Zayed Book Award. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award is one of the Arab world’s most prestigious literary prizes, showcasing the stimulating and ambitious work of writers, translators, researchers, academics and publishers advancing Arab literature and culture around the globe.

Hoda Barakat was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2025 for her novel Hind, or the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. Barakat’s other award-winning novels include The Stone of Laughter, The Tiller of Waters and Disciples of Passion.

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award Translation Grant is open all year round, with funding available for titles that have won or been shortlisted for an award in the Children’s Literature and Literature categories. Publishers outside the Arab world are eligible to apply - find out more on the Sheikh Zayed Book Award website at: zayedaward.ae Barakat’s biography and a description of her novel can be found on the SZBA website.

During this episode, we read part of Marilyn Booth’s translation-in-progress. Booth also translated several other novels by Barakat, including her International Prize for Arabic Fiction-winning Bareed al-Layl, translated to English as Voices of the Lost.

You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you’d like to rate or review us, we’d appreciate that. If you’d like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more.

For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.