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This episode focuses on Driss Chraibi's The Simple Past (Le Passé Simple), a Moroccan novel about a very angry young man in revolt against his father's tyranny and the hypocrisies of his colonial education. Back in 1954, it was compared to an explosion – and it still packs a punch today.

Show Notes:

The Simple Past was newly re-issued from NYRB Classics in Hugh A. Harter's 1990 translation, with a new introduction from Adam Shatz. Shatz's introduction is available online at the NYR Daily.

Excerpts from Chraibi's interview with Federico Arbós can be found at Fragmentos de la entrevista con Federico Arbós, El Mundo/La Esfera, 28/3/92.

This episode also references Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy and the father figure of Si Sayyed; Waguih Ghali's Beer in the Snooker Club; and Tayib Saleh's Season of Migration to the North.

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We recorded this episode in Cairo with author, translator, and Mada Masr culture editor Yasmine Zohdi. We talked about making art in difficult and precarious times; how to acknowledge the political context; censorship and self-censorship.

“What we talk about when we talk about trees,” by Yasmine Zohdi, ran in Mada Masr in December of last year.

We also spoke about the shrinking of cultural spaces in Cairo.

Zohdi also translates, including her husband Muhammad al-Hajj's beautiful Nobody Mourns the City's Cats.

MLQ was in Cairo for the ARCE symposium on popular culture. Essays from and inspired by the symposium will be appearing at The Maydan.

An excerpt of the Egyptian novel Prizes for Heroes was translated as part of Mada Masr's translation series.

The Egyptian film Yomeddine (“Judgement Day”) was part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival.

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This episode is dedicated to the work of the Moroccan film-maker, novelist, artist, and poet Ahmed Bouanani – much of which has yet to be released, and much of which was censored or destroyed in his own life.

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We talk about passion projects, the value of intellectual labor, and the ups and downs of making a living (sort of) writing about books.

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We discuss some of our favorite books from the past year, and some titles we're excited to get our hands on soon.

Show Notes

• Our Women on the Ground: Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World, ed. Zahra Hankir
• Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, tr. Sinan Antoon
• Palestine + 100, ed. Basma Ghalayini
• Palestine as Metaphor, by Mahmoud Darwish, tr. Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché
• Room 304 or How I Hid from My Dear Father for 35 Years by Amr Ezzat, tr. Nora Amin and Yasmine Zohdi
• Souls of Edo, by Stella Gaitano, is available from Rafiki Printing and Publishing
• Celestial Bodies, by Jokha al-Harthi, tr. Marilyn Booth; you can watch the clip from their CNN interview on Twitter.
• Sentence to Hope: A Sa'dallah Wannous Reader by Sa'dallah Wannous, tr. Nada Saab and Robert Myers
• Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide by Mohamed Elshahed
• The Magnificent Conman of Cairo by Adel Kamel, tr. Waleed Almusharaf
• Impostures by al-Hariri, translated by Michael Cooperson

· In Pursuit of Enayat al-Zayat by Iman Mersal

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We talk about a newly released collection of five compelling and highly quotable interviews with the great late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, titled Palestine as Metaphor, translated by Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché. We also talk about recent protests in Lebanon and how they are being written about in Lebanese and international media, as well as the frightening day when the independent Egyptian news site Mada Masr’s offices were raided and editors detained. (All of Mada’s staff has now been released). This episode was partly recorded and produced in the offices of the Sowt network.

SHOW NOTES

• The Great Lebanese Ponzi Scheme by Lina Mounzer

• The Lebanese Street Asks: ‘Which Is Stronger, Sect or Hunger?’ by Ursula Lindsey

• On Power, Machines, and Departures: Running Mada Masr in Today’s Egypt by Lina Attalah.

• A few things you might like to know about us, by Lina Attalah

• Palestine as Metaphor by Mahmoud Darwish, tr. Amira El-Zein and Carolyn Forché

Palestine as Metaphor By Mahmoud Darwish In the Presence of Absence By Mahmoud Darwish Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (Literature of the Middle East) By Mahmoud Darwish

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In the first half of the episode, we paid tribute to Jordanian poet, activist, novelist, travel writer, and editor Amjad Nasser (1955-2019), who died at the end of October. In the second, we talked about the political space occupied by Moroccan-French writers Tahar Ben Jelloun and Leïla Slimani, particularly in the wake of the trial against—and pardon of—Moroccan journalist Hajar Raissouni over an alleged abortion. What is a writer’s responsibility in a society, or between societies? And what about those of us who talk about, report on, and frame literature? (This episode partly recorded and produced in the offices of the Sowt network).

SHOW NOTES

• A short English-language tribute to Amjad Nasser on ArabLit, and a longer one in Arabic on 7iber.

• Nassar’s recent poems are available on Facebookbutnot yet in translation.Other poems have been translated by Sinan Antoon and Fady Joudahand by the Poetry Translation Center.

• The letter in Le Monde, co-composed by Slimani, « Nous, citoyennes et citoyens marocains, déclarons que nous sommes hors la loi,» and also the pieces about Slimani in The New Yorkerand LitHub. Since we aired the episode, another fawning profile of Slimanihas been published in Le Monde.

• Tahar Ben Jelloun, writing in Le Point: “Vous, obscurantistes, êtes en train de prendre le Maroc de la modernité en otage.”

• Also the criticism of both writers by Omar Brousky in Orient XXI.

• Ursula’s editorial in the New York Timesabout the Hajar Raissouni case.

• Ben Jelloun’s On Terrorism: Conversations with My Daughterwill be coming to English in February 2020.

Land of No Rain By Amjad Nasser The Perfect Nanny: A Novel By Leila Slimani

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We discuss two novels set in Iraq -- one featuring a despondent policeman, and one featuring a determined grandma and her donkey. Also, how John Updike once dismissed the great Saudi writer Abdelrahman Mounif as "insufficiently Westernized" to write a novel.

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We talk about two festivals (one long-established, one brand new) that celebrate Palestinian literature; an author who was penalized for supporting BDS; and a book that asks the question: What would happen if Palestinians simply disappeared? (And once again we recorded this episode in the studio of the wonderful Sowt platform in Amman).

Show Notes

• Jayne Cortez’s poem “There It Is” was performed by Sapphire at Palfest 2014.

• Palfest was re-launched this year with a focus on knowledge production and an emphasis on how Palestine fits within larger struggles against imperialism, racism and economic exploitation.

• The first-of-its kind literary festival Palestine Writes will be held in New York in March 2020.

• Kamila Shamsie was de-awarded the Nellie Sachs literary prize over her support of the Palestinian BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) movement. Hundreds of writers signed a statement of solidarity with her.

• Benjamin Netanyahu promised further annexations in the West Bank during his last electoral campaign. The details of the Trump administration’s “deal of the century” have yet to emerge.

• As the New York Times reported recently, Israel bans Arabic-language books from entering the country.

• Ibtisem Azem’s The Book of Disappearance was translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon.

The Book of Disappearance: A Novel (Middle East Literature In Translation) By Ibtisam Azem

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Ursula & MLQ open the new season of BULAQ -- recorded in Amman, under the auspices of the Sowt network -- with a focus on Egypt.

• This episode's reading is from Yasmine Zohdi's translation of Muhammad al-Haj's Sawiris-winning Nobody Mourns the City's Cats, available in the Summer 2019 issue of ArabLit Quarterly.

• Azzurra Meringolo Scarfoglio’s book of interviews with Egyptian exiles is Fuga dall’Egitto (“Escape from Egypt”).

• Ursula reviewed Peter Hessler’s The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, in the New York Review of Books.

• More than 2,000 Egyptians have been detained in a massive sweep of arrests following a new series of protests across the country; among the detainees is Egyptian novelist Muhammad Aladdin, whose charming revolution story, "Season of Migration to Arkadia," is available in Humphrey Davies' translation.

• Marcia guest-edited the last issue of Words Without Border, focused on Arabic humor.
  
  

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