Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and moral philosophy. The book creates and shares space for everyone who is full of grief and rage, who cannot be at home in institutions that support or ignore genocide. We discuss the linguistic obfuscations around Gaza, El Akkad’s critique of Western liberalism, and the possibilities for a different future.

Show notes:

You can get One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This from Penguin Random House, where a sample of the audiobook is available, read by Omar El Akkad.

Omar’s first novel, American War, is also available from Penguin Random.

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 [email protected].

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

Journalist, author and editor Alia Malek tells us about her recent visit to Damascus and about the anthology of Syrian writing she edited for McSweeneys. Aftershocks was released in December 2024, just days after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and the country's political prisons began to crack open. The collection brings together work by sixteen Syrian authors who write from diasporic and refugee experience, as well as from inside Syria. We discuss these key Syrian literary voices and how they and others are meeting this moment.

Show notes:

Get the Aftershocks anthology from McSweeney’s at store.mcsweeneys.net.

Malek’s 2017 book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, is available from Bold Type Books.

Read Malek’s reflections on the death of her father, “‘He Didn’t Want to Lie in a Grave That Couldn’t Be Visited” and her recent “What Did the World Learn From Syria?” in the New York Times.

Read a short conversation with Aftershocks contributor Rawaa Sonbol, “On Being a Writer in Syria Today” and her short story “The Noose Boy,” both at ArabLit.

We mention the late Syrian writers Khaled Khalifa and Saadallah Wannous. 

The photo of Alia Malek in Damascus in January 2025 is by Sabir Hasko. 

You can subscribe to BULAQ on all your favorite podcast networks. You can also follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books, where we post about upcoming episodes and literary events.

Please don’t forget to rate and recommend BULAQ.

We are a non-profit, listener-supported program. If you’d like to make a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

BULAQ is a co-production with the podcast platform Sowt.

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

Comics artist Rawand Issa joins us to talk about her book Inside the Giant Fish (trans. Amy Chiniara, Maamoul Press); her path from journalism to graphic art; artist groups and collectives across the region; the “new school of Arab comics,” and the challenges of making a living as a comics artist. We also talk about a few other Lebanese graphic novels, particularly Lamia Ziadé’s My Port of Beirut, translated to English by Emma Ramadan, and Lena Merhej’s I Think We’ll Be Calmer in the Next War.

Show Notes:

You can find several of Rawand’s books available from Maamoul Press: http://maamoulpress.com. 

Also read Rawand’s “Being Illegal is Unbearable at The Nib, her  ماذا نفعل في مواجهة استمرار العنف ضد النساء؟ at Jeem and her untitled work in Chime.

And if you missed it, there’s a discussion with Rawand and translator Amy Chiniara about Inside the Giant Fish at ArabLit.

Samandal magazine is on Instagram (@samandalcomics), and you can find them at samandal-comics.org.

You can buy copies of the magazine Corniche at the Sharjah Art Foundation website.

Lab619 (@lab619), Skefkef (@skefkefmag/), and Fanzeen Comics (@fanzeencomics/) are on Instagram, while TokTok has a website, toktokmag.com.

Rawand Issa (@rawand.issa_) and Amy Chiniara (@amychiniara) are both on Instagram, too.

Lamia Ziadé’s My Port of Beirut, translated to English by Emma Ramadan, from Pluto Press

Lena Merhej’s We Will Be Calmer in the Next War is available online.

Please support BULAQ! You can donate to our fundraiser for the 2023 season at donorbox.org/support-bulaq.

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

In this episode, we talk through some literary news from Algeria and France, discuss two big translations out this fall from towering authors, as well as a new favorite by Maya Abu al-Hayyat. Then we turn to Read Palestine Week and the new collection focused on writers in Gaza, And Still We Write, before a discussion on refusing to work with Israeli publishers that are complicit in the violence against Palestinians. 

Show notes:

Author Kamel Daoud sued over claim he used life of wife’s patient in novel (The Guardian)

An excerpt from Aziz Binebine’s own account of Tazmamart, translated by Lulu Norman (WWB). Binebine’s story was the basis for Tahar Ben Jelloun’s This Blinding Absence of Light.

Radwa Ashour’s classic Granada Trilogy is finally out in its complete form, in Kay Heikkenen’s translation. You can find the launch discussion at the AUC Press YouTube.

The late Elias Khoury’s Children of the Ghetto: Star of the Sea, translated by the late Humphrey Davies, was published in November by Archipelago Books.

Maya Abu al-Hayyat’s soon-to-be-classic No One Knows Their Blood Type is out in Hazem Jamjoum’s vibrant translation this fall, from Ohio State University Press

You can get a free digital copy of And Still We Write from the ArabLit storefront, https://arablit.gumroad.com/ Those who want a print copy can get one through Mixam.

The letter on refusing to work with Israeli publishers complicit in violence against Palestinians is on the PalFest website.

Ahdaf Soueif responds to some criticism of the letter in the London Review of Books. 

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

Today’s guest, Irene Lozano, is the director of a Spanish cultural institution, Casa Arabe. It received the 2024 Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Cultural Personality of the Year. As we’ll discuss, Casa Arabe is a center of learning, discussion and exchange between Spain and Arab countries. It offers Arabic language classes and a myriad of cultural initiatives and programs, including hosting talks by many prominent Arab writers. In this episode, we discuss the connection between Arabic and Spanish culture, representations of the Arab world in Spain and much more. 

This episode of the BULAQ 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.

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award Translation Grant is open all year round, with funding available for fiction titles that have won or been shortlisted for the award. Publishers outside the Arab world are eligible to apply. Find out more on the Sheikh Zayed Book Award website at: zayedaward.ae

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

Moroccan author Karima Ahdad was the winner of this year’s Arabic Flash Fiction contest run by ArabLit and Komet Kashakeel, which saw more than 900 entries from around the world. We read her award-winning story in Katherine Van de Vate’s discussion and discuss patriarchy, story creation, and what it means to write “feminist” work.

Show Notes:

Karima was also shortlisted for an earlier edition of the ArabLit Story Prize. You can read her shortlisted story, “The Baffling Case of the Man Called Ahmet Yilmaz,” in Katherine Van de Vate’s translation.

Katherine also translated an excerpt of Karima’s The Cactus Girls for The Markaz Review.

You can read a conversation between Karima and Katherine about Cactus Girls on arablit.

You can find more about all Karima’s books at her website, karimaahdad.com.

On the topic of the “political” novel, we mentioned Rabih Alameddine’s new book, Comforting Myths.

The Arabic Flash Fiction prize is funded by the British Council’s Beyond Literature Borders programme corun by Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions. Find all the finalists at ArabLit.

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

An epic historical novel set in Fatimid Cairo, Reem Bassiouney’s The Halva-Maker trilogy won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and is forthcoming in English. The book explores the founding of Cairo, by a Shia dynasty and a set of generals and rulers who all hailed from elsewhere. We talked to Bassiouney about balancing research and imagination; shining a light on women in Egyptian medieval history; and the heritage (architectural and culinary) of the past.

This episode of the BULAQ 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. The Sheikh Zayed Book Award Translation Grant is open all year round, with funding available for fiction titles that have won or been shortlisted for the award. Publishers outside the Arab world are eligible to apply. Find out more on the Sheikh Zayed Book Award website at: zayedaward.ae

Bassiouney is a professor of socio-linguistics at the American University in Cairo. She has won the State Award for Excellence in Literature for her overall literary works, the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature from the Supreme Council for Culture for her Sons of the People: The Mamluk Trilogy (trans. Roger Allen), the Sawiris Cultural Award for her novel Professor Hanaa (trans. Laila Helmy), and a Best Translated Book Award for The Pistachio Seller (trans. Osman Nusairi).

Dar Arab will publish Bassiouney’s The Halva-Maker trilogy and her novel Mario and Abu l-Abbas. Both have been translated by Roger Allen.

Bassiouney’s Ibn Tulun Trilogy, also translated by Roger, was published by Georgetown University Press.

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

We recorded this interview with Deen in January 2022, just as her debut urban-fantasy trilogy Shubeik Lubeik (“Your Wish is My Command”) was coming out in English. This original and beautifully illustrated story imagines that wishes of varying quality can be bought and sold in contemporary Cairo, with unpredictable and poignant results. It has been widely celebrated and nominated for a Hugo Award.

While the US edition from Pantheon keeps the title “Shubeik Lubeik,” the UK edition from Granta uses a literal translation: “Your Wish Is My Command.”

Find more of Deena’s work at http://deenadraws.art and on Twitter and Instagram as @itsdeenasaur.

The original Arabic three volumes were published by Dar Mahrousa and are available in the US through Maamoul Press.

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

Art critic and journalist Kaelen Wilson-Goldie joins us for a sweeping look at the life, writing, and art of singular Lebanese author-artist Etel Adnan (1925-2021).  

Kaelin Wilson-Goldie’s Etel Adnan is available from Lund Humphries.

Adnan’s Time, translated by Sarah Riggs, is available from Nightboat Books.

The Beauty of Light, a collection of interviews with Laure Adler, is available from Nightboat Books in Ethan Mitchell’s translation. It was initially published in French, as "La beauté de la lumière, entretiens," by Éditions de seuil, in 2022.

An excerpt from Adnan’s “Jebu” is available in the single issue of the magazine Tigris, hosted on ArabLit.

Sitt Marie Rose is available in Georgina Kleege’s English translation from the Post-Apollo Press.

Adnan’s essay “On Small Magazines,” where she writes of meeting Abdellatif Laâbi, is available on Bidoun.

Adnan’s “To Write in a Foreign Language” describes her journey with and through languages.

All the images used in promotion of this episode are courtesy of the Sfeir-Semler Gallery. 

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

Majalla 28 is a literary magazine out of Gaza co-producing an issue with ArabLit. We talk about the work by co-editors Mahmoud al-Shaer and Mohamed al-Zaqzouq and read excerpts from that issue. After that, we talk about a particular kind of Palestinian literature – by writers serving life sentences. 

Find out more about the Gaza issue at arablit.org

More writing by Heba Al-Agha, translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso, is also available at arablit.org

You can read more about the late author Walid Daqqa, who died in an Israeli prison, at Jadaliyya

Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Srour’s The Wall, translated by Luke Leafgren, is out now from Other Press

A Mask, the Colour of the Sky, by Palestinian writer Basim Khandaqji, won this year’s International Prize for Arabic Fiction. Khandaqji is serving three consecutive life sentences; his novel is forthcoming in English translation from Europa Editions.

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