BULAQ | بولاق

We discuss the classic 1953 novel by the Jewish Tunisian Francophone writer Albert Memmi, who died this year. This sharp and beautiful book is many things: a coming of age story, an account of colonialism, and a World War II novel. Its driven, unhappy narrator breaks with his community and family in search of a new identity but is disappointed again and again. Like Lot's wife in the Bible, he cannot help looking back on the past he rejects. He asks: “is it possible for me to survive my contemplation of myself?”

Show Notes:

The Pillar of Salt, translated from the French by Edouard Roditi, is available as an e-book. Memmi also wrote The Colonizer and The Colonized, an account of Tunisia's first year of independence, Tunisie, An I and numerous other books.

We compared the book to Driss Chraibi's The Simple Past, another post-colonial novel narrated by a very angry young man, which we dedicated a whole other episode to.

In the LRB, Adam Shatz recently wrote a wonderful essay discussing Memmi's writings, political philosophy, and contradictions.

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Nazik al-Mala'ika was an Iraqi woman poet of great influence and renown through the 1940s, 50s and 60s. She pioneered new poetic forms and re-invented a heritage of feminine, emotional, elegiac poetry-making. We are joined by scholar and translator Emily Drumsta to discuss a new bilingual collection of al-Mala'ika's poetry, Revolt Against the Sun. The collection is coming out this month from Saqi Books in the UK and January 2021 in the US.

We read from:

“A Letter to Him,” from For Prayer and Revolution (1978)

“Cholera,” from Shrapnel and Ash (1949)“The Moon Tree,” from The Moon Tree (1968)

“Revolt Against the Sun,” from Night Lover (1947)

A few poems by al-Mala'ika online:

“Night Lover,” tr. Drumsta

“Revolt Against the Sun,” tr. Drumsta

From “A Song for Mankind,” tr. Drumsta

“The Train Passed By,” tr. Drumsta

“New Year,” t. Rebecca Carol Johnson, on WWB

“Love Song for Words,” tr. Johnson, on WWB

You can see more about the book at saqibooks.com/books/saqi/revolt-against-the-sun.

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Ursula Lindsey and Marcia Lynx Qualey discuss books from across the Arab region and new translations from Arabic.

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This episode looks at the Fall 2020 issue of ArabLit Quarterly, which focuses on cats: in contemporary Arabic stories, in erotic poetry, in medieval scholarship, in Egyptian art, in Palestinian politics, and more.

We read from:

Ghada Samman's “Beheading the Cat,” translated by Issa Boullata.

The poetry of Rasha Omran, in the issue in Arabic, French, and English.

Al-Jawbari's advice on avoiding criminals with cats, translated for the issue by Dima El-Mouallem.

We also focus on:

Karim Zidan's essay on cats in Egyptian art, “Felines, Fellahin, and Fortune Tellers.”

Hoda Marmar's essay-interview with Muna Nasrallah, the daughter of Emily Nasrallah and previous owner of the cat from Nasrallah's classic YA novel, What Happened to Zeeko?

The fifteenth-century encyclopedic text “Merits of the Housecat,” translated by David Larsen.

Layla Baalbaki's classic story “The Cat,” translated by Tom Abi Samra.

You can get a copy of the magazine at www.arablit.org.

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We only took a one month break but there are so many new (and a few old) books to talk about! We put together a list of ten titles of interest to start out the Fall with.

1) Etel Adnan's Shifting the Silence (out in September) is the latest by the 95-year-old Lebanese artist and poet.

2) The Fourth Shore, Alessandro Spina, tr. André Naffis-Sahely, is the latest volume of the author's monumental series, The Confines of The Shadow, to be translated. You can read about Spina -- who came from a Syrian family, grew up in Libya, and wrote in Italian -- here.

3) A bilingual collection of the renowned Iraq female poet Nazik al-Mala'ika, Revolt Against the Sun, tr. Emily Drumsta (out in October)

4) The Pillar of Salt is a classic post-colonial novel by the Tunisian writer Albert Memmi, who passed aways this year. Adam Shatz wrote a lovely profile of him in the London Review of Books.

5) Two Half Faces by Moroccan Dutch author Mustafa Stitou, tr. David Colmer (October 2020). You can read some of Stitou's poems here.

6) A Country For Dying, by the Moroccan novelist Abdallah Taia, tr. Emma Ramadan, tells the stories of several immigrants and refugees in Paris, seeking new lives and escape from violence and repression.

7) Straight from the Horse's Mouth Meryem Alaoui tr. Emma Ramadan (September) is narrated by a prostitute in Casablanca.

8) Between Beirut and the Moon, A. Naji Bakhti, is a collection of humorous essays about the author's family and growing up in post-civil-war Beirut.

9) Haytham al-Wardani's Book of Sleep tr. Robin Moger (November) & his newest book in Arabic, Ma La Youmkin Islahu (“That Which Cannot Be Repaired”). Kayfa Ta published Al-Wardani's How to Disappear.

10) Sonia Nimr's Wondrous Journeys in Strange Lands tr. you very own MLQ.

We also discussed some recent moving writing from Lebanon. And how some ways writers have come together and you can help to support libraries and bookshops there.

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We talk about the Syrian writer Dima Wannous' haunting novel The Frightened Ones, translated by Elisabeth Jacquette. It's a book about fear, panic and anxiety -- in one's body and society, between generations and lovers -- that is also somehow a great pleasure to read.

Show Notes:

The Frightened Ones was shortlisted for the 2018 International Prize for Arabic Fiction; its English translation is now out in the UK and forthcoming in the US.

We discussed the work of Wannous' father, the brilliant playwright Sa'adallah Wannous, in episode 28, “Sentenced to Hope.”

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We talk about a collection of essays by female journalists from the region. Guilt, anger, recklessness, determination. There are many different and movingly honest takes on reporting while Arab and female.

Show Notes:

You can also follow the contributors to this volume online: follow @ZahraHankir and @HindHassanNews on Lebanon; @Linaattalah, the editor of @madamasr, on Egypt; @AidaAlami on Morocco; and many more.

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Beirut writer Lina Mounzer reads from her essay “Waste Away: Notes on Beirut's Broken Sewage System.” We discuss the current situation in Lebanon and literature that looks at the worlds beneath our feet.

Show Notes:

Lina Mounzer's “Waste Away” appears in The Baffler; a slightly modified version is set to be published next week in the anthology Tales of Two Planets, ed. John Freeman.

Saleem Haddad's “Song of the Birds,” in the anthology Palestine + 100, explores the problems of sewage at Palestinian shores.

Rabee Jaber's Mehlis Report, translated to English by Kareem James Abu-Zeid, tells the tale of two cities: Beirut above and Beirut below.

Mounzer's “Translating Trash” appeared last year in The Paris Review. Also, her “The Great Ponzi Scheme” predicted a Lebanese financial disaster in the New York Times last December.

Mounzer wasn't alone. This essay from 2017 -- “Abracadabra...broke” -- also saw a looming economic crisis.

Ursula wrote about Lebanese protests last November in the NYR Daily: The Lebanese Street Asks: ‘Which Is Stronger, Sect or Hunger?'

Favorite Lebanese literary magazines Samandal and Rusted Radishes continue to publish, although RR is re-imagining their budget and fundraising possibilities. Keep an eye out for their Patreon.

*Editor's Note: Ursula incorrectly refers to a long-serving Lebanese prime minister. She meant Speaker of Parliament. Nabih Berri has held that position for nearly three decades.

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Our guest this week was once told there were no Algerian crime novels. She begs to differ. We discuss the many examples of the genre and its evolution in Algeria, Morocco and Egypt.

Show Notes:

Nadia Ghanem regularly covers Algerian and Moroccan literature -- particularly crime fiction -- for ArabLit. She has a wonderful crime-lit overview, "The Story of 50 Years of Algerian Crime Fiction in 60+ Books," and also a short translation of a work by Chawki Amari, ‘Murder at Algiers' Book Fair'.

A few of Nadia's favorite Algerian crime novels: Adel s'emmele by Salim Aissa (ENAL editions, 1988), Kharidj el-Saytara (خارج السيطرة) by Abdelatif Ould Abdellah (El-Ikhtilef editions, 2016), Sakarat Nedjma (سكرات نجمة) by Amel Bouchareb (Chihab editions, 2015), 1994 by Adlene Meddi (Barzakh editions, Algeria, also released in France by Rivage editions in 2018), La prière du Maure by Adlene Meddi (Barzakh editions, 2008), Le casse-tête turc by Adlene Meddi (Barzakh editions, 2002).

Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Algerian writer Mohammed Moulessehoul. He has written many books, including a series of brilliant detective novels, which have also been translated into English.

The Moroccan writer Driss Chraibi's Inspector Ali is the hero of his acclaimed detective novels.

The 2017 Egyptian noir film The Nile Hilton Incident take place just before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in Cairo.

Nael Eltoukhy, author of Women of Karantina (tr. Robin Moger), wrote "Some Advice on Avoiding Censorship" for the Summer 2020 crime-themed issue of ArabLit Quarterly.

Ahmed Mourad's Vertigo, also tr. Moger, follows a story of crime and corruption through a photographer-sleuth's lens.

Elias Khoury's White Masks is his only murder-mystery; it has been translated by Maia Tabet.

Several of Abdelilah Hamdouchi's crime novels have been translated and published by Hoopoe.

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We discuss a book that tells the stories of women who rallied to ISIS; one that focuses on a Franco-Moroccan family grappling with the end of colonialism; and a picaresque, satirical novel from 1940s Egypt that has been recently re-discovered.

Show Notes:

Ursula's review of Guest House for Young Widows, a book about women who joined ISIS, appeared in the last issue of The Point magazine. It references a few other books, such as Dunya Mikhail's The Beekeeper of Sinjar (which gathers the testimonies of Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS) and David Thomson's The Returned, about French jihadis.

Ursula's review of the Moroccan-French author Leila Slimani's latest novel, Le Pays des Autres, will be out soon in the New York Review of books. Slimani's The Perfect Nanny was an international best-seller; her new book is part of a planned historical trilogy set in Morocco.

Adel Kamel's long-forgotten, now-remembered classic Malim al-Akbar recently appeared in English as The Magnificent Conman of Cairo. A special section on ArabLit marks the launch.

Literary detective Mohamed Shoair is author of the acclaimed 2018 popular history Children of the Alley: The Story of the Forbidden Novel, which follows the story of Naguib Mahfouz's most controversial novel. A chapter of Shoair's book appears online in Samah Selim's translation.

Mahfouz talks briefly about the Harafish, his circle of literary friends, in Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate, 1994-2001, from conversations with Mohamed Salmawy.

Albert Cossery was a French writer of Levantine origin, born in Cairo. Although he settled in Paris in 1945, he set all his wonderful novels — about criminals, layabouts and would-be revolutionaries — in Egypt or the middle east.

The crime issue of ArabLit Quarterly is available now.

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