12 (Auto)biographical Narratives by Algerian Women

via ArabLit, A list of life-writing by Algerian women that’s worth reading: By Hiyem Cheurfa After ArabLit’s list of 12 Must-read Memoirs in Arabic, I proposed a similar list of (auto)biographical texts by Algerian women, whose contribution to the genre has often been critically obscured. The following list, which I have compiled with the help of my fellow Twitter users, comprises twelve narratives by Algerian women that I think are … Read more 12 (Auto)biographical Narratives by Algerian Women

Just Out: “Arabia (not so) Deserta”

Just out from spuytenduyvil! Arabia (not so) Deserta Essays on Maghrebi & Mashreqi Writing & Culture Pierre Joris ISBN 978-1-949966-05-3 200 pages $18.00 Anne Waldman: This is a treasure, a caravanserai of a book, erudite, personal, enlightening. Pierre Joris poet, translator, editor, anthologist scholar, flâneur par excellence—is an incomparable and friendly guide to these realms, his lifelong passion and esprit manifest and up for the rigor of this … Read more Just Out: “Arabia (not so) Deserta”

An Excerpt from Inès Abbassi’s ‘Bourguiba House’

via ArabLit: As Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth) continues, we have a excerpt from Inès Abbassi’s Manzel Bourguiba (Bourguiba House), winner of the Arabic Jury Prize from the Golden Comar, Tunisia’s top literary Prize: The excerpt and book summary are translated by Sawad Hussain. The book is: A tale of Habib and Nur Al-Din, two Tunisian brothers who migrate to the US in the seventies, at a time when most Tunisians … Read more An Excerpt from Inès Abbassi’s ‘Bourguiba House’

Juan Goytisolo – Tangier, Havana and the Treasonous Intellectual

Wow! Two days in a row I’m reposting Arab Lit (in English). Today Marcia Lynx Qualey brings up (& sends us to a dossier on) one of my very favorite Spanish-born Maghrebi-by-choice writers: Juan Goytisolo (5 January 1931 – 4 June 2017), someone I had hoped to eventually meet — something that was unhappily not to be. In my library Goytisolo’s books do not stand on the Spanish Lit … Read more Juan Goytisolo – Tangier, Havana and the Treasonous Intellectual

Yto Barrada review: Seismic shifts in Morocco are felt powerfully at the Barbican

Here, the opening of the first review for Yto Barrada’s Agadir installation (see previous post for details): Matthew Collins writes in the Go London section of the Evening Standard: Conceptual art’s present day fall-out discipline, installationism, can often seem like avant-garde stunts plus geography lessons. As with anything that has become a routine there can be trouble propping the eyelids up. But Yto Barrada, the celebrated 46-year-old Moroccan artist … Read more Yto Barrada review: Seismic shifts in Morocco are felt powerfully at the Barbican

AGADIR: Installation by Yto Barrada & texts by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine

Today is the opening of Moroccan artist Yto Barrada’s installation AGADIR at the Curve Gallery of the Barbican Center in London. Below, the official announcement & a few of the pages from Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s book “Agadir,” which I translated for the occasion: For her first major London commission, artist Yto Barrada weaves together personal narratives and political ideals to create a complex portrait of a city and its people … Read more AGADIR: Installation by Yto Barrada & texts by Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine

Court Jesters and Black Mirrors: Translator Alex Elinson on Bringing Moroccan Literature into English

Via Arab Literature (in English) & BY MLYNXQUALEY on JANUARY 24, 2018 • ( 0 ) Episode 6 of the Bulaq podcast was built — among other things — on a talk by Moroccan novelist Youssef Fadel and conversations with translator Alex Elinson:In that episode, ArabLit’s M. Lynx Qualey & Arabist’s Ursula Lindsey discuss Moroccan literature about the country’s “years of lead” and its formidable and ruthless former king Hassan II; and … Read more Court Jesters and Black Mirrors: Translator Alex Elinson on Bringing Moroccan Literature into English

19 Arab Authors on Their Favorite Reads of 2017

Via Arab Literature (in English) & BY MLYNXQUALEY on DECEMBER 20, 2017 • ( 0 ) Each year, ArabLit knocks on the doors of a range of Arab novelists, poets, and memoirists, asking for their favorite reads os 2017. This year’s list was co-edited and -translated by Mahmoud Hosny and M Lynx Qualey: Salim Barakat (Syrian-Kurdish poet and novelist) I didn’t get many books this year. So I reread: … Read more 19 Arab Authors on Their Favorite Reads of 2017

“Exile: Women’s Turn — A Poem of East and West” by Nabile Farès

Just out from Dialogos Press, this excellent translation of Nabile Farès L’Exil au féminin, a poem sequence from 1990. A superb poet & novelist, who left us in 2016, Farès may be best known in this country for his second novel, Un passager de l’Occident (A Passenger From The West), which concerns his meeting and friendship with James Baldwin, also translated by Peter Thompson & published in 2010 by … Read more “Exile: Women’s Turn — A Poem of East and West” by Nabile Farès

Frantz Fanon, on/for his Birthday, 20 July 1925.

Frantz Fanon (Fort de France 1925-Washington 1961) ON NATIONAL CULTURE […] I am ready to concede that on the plane of factual being the past existence of an Aztec civilization does not change anything , very much in the diet of the Mexican peasant of today. I admit that all the proofs of a wonderful Songhai civilization will not change the fact that today the Songhais are underfed and … Read more Frantz Fanon, on/for his Birthday, 20 July 1925.

Nomadics

Category: Maghreb