In Aziz Muhammad’s The Critical Case of a Man Named K, an unnamed narrator is diagnosed with leukemia. His 40-week journal, shaped by his readings of Kafka, Thomas Mann, Ernest Hemingway and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, sarcastically and movingly documents his alienation from his body, his surroundings and even, eventually, from books.

Show Notes: 

An interview with translator Humphrey Davies.

We also talked about a few other works where protagonists are diagnosed with cancer:Shahla Ujayli’s A Sky So Close to Us, translated by Michelle Hartman (Interlink Books); Radwa Ashour’s Heavier than Radwa (Dar Al Shorouk), although this is a memoir; Haifa al-Bitar’s A Woman of This Modern Age (Dar Saqi); Hassan Daoud’s No Road to Paradise, translated by Marilyn Booth (Hoopoe Fiction).

We also mention some Saudi books that have won awards or attracted international attention, such as Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea and The Dove’s Necklace by Raja Alem.

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An earthquake inspired Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Agadir, published in French in 1967 and translated to English by Jake Syersack and Pierre Joris. Part playtext, part novel, part political essay, part poem, this insurrection of a book takes as its starting point the devastating 1960 earthquake that struck the Moroccan city. 

Show Notes: 

We also talked about a few recently published and forthcoming poetry collections.

Mohamed Stitou’s Two Half Faces, translated by David Colmer (Phoneme Media)

Ra’ad Abdulqadir’s Except for This Unseen Thread, translated by Mona Kareem (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Ibn Arabi’s The Translator of Desires, translated by Michael Sells (Princeton University Press)

Yasmine Seale and Robin Moger’s Agitated Air: Poems After Ibn Arabi (Tenement Press).

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We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native Aleppo as translator to a rapacious and sometimes ridiculous Frenchman. He survived a shipwreck and a pirate attack, met King Louis XIV, and gave The Thousand and One Nights translator Antoine Galland a dozen new stories. Cheated out of a promised job in Paris, he eventually returned to Syria, where he wrote it all up in his old age. 

Show Notes

You can download a free Arabic PDF of the Book of Travels on the Library of Arabic Literature website.

You can read more about Diyab (and speculation about whether he was the “real Aladdin”) in Paolo Lemos Horta’s Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights.

You can read Yasmine Seale’s stand-alone translation of Aladdin, introduced by Lemos Horta, or get her new Annotated Arabian Nights, edited and introduced by Lemos Horta, out this month from WW Norton.

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An Interview with Maria Dadouch, who won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Children’s Literature this year. Dadouch’s book The Mystery of the Glass ball features two children becoming friends, fighting villains and protecting nature on a train ride in the near future. We talked about the need for more Arabic YA books; contemporary sci-fi; literary prizes; digital publishing and why writing for teenagers is the hardest thing to do.  

This episode 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.

Today’s guest, Maria Dadouch, was awarded the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2022 in the category of Children’s Literature, for her novel لغز الكورة الزجاجية or "The Mystery of the Glass Ball." Dadouche is a screenwriter and children’s author from Syria who has published over 50 books. 

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

You can find some of Dadouch’s many childrens’ books in Arabic here.  

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We read from the work of Palestinian poets Maya Abu Al Hayyat, Fady Joudah, Asmaa Azaizeh and Najwan Darwish, who writes: “Death has liberated me/ from the shackles of our small jailers,/ just as poetry has liberated us/ from the greatest jailer–time.”

Show Notes

Maya Abu Al-Hayyat’s You Can Be The Last Leaf, Trans. Fady Joudah, is out from Milkweed Editions

Najwan Darwish’s Collection Exhausted On the Cross, Trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid, is out from New York Review Books. 

Fady Joudah curated The Baffler’s series of lyric dispatches from Palestine, from which Marcia read Asmaa Azaizeh’s Reflection. 

We read Fady Joudah’s poem Dehiscence, from his new collection Tethered to Stars. 

And if you are interested in hearing much more Arabic poetry, check out the podcast Maqsouda, another Sowt production.

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Guest hosts Rafael (age 11) and Milo (almost 10) take over this episode of Bulaq to talk about the evil aunts, time-traveling djinn, and scary checkpoints in the first book of Palestinian novelist Sonia Nimr's fast-paced fantasy trilogy: Thunderbird.

Show Notes

The first Thunderbird novel is available from University of Texas Press. The second is forthcoming this fall.

Educators interested in joining a launch event on Zoom with author and translator can sign up at the University of Texas website. Participants will get a free copy of the book!

Red Stars, by Davide Morosinottto, is available in Denise Muir's translation. You can find more about literature for young readers in translation at worldkidlit.wordpress.com.

Rafael's next editing project is Sawad Hussain's translation of Djamila Morani's The Djinn's Apple, forthcoming from Neem Tree.

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Translator Alexander E. Elinson joins us to discuss Yassin Adnan's Hot Maroc, a sprawling satire of contemporary Morocco. The novel, set in Marrakesh and online, follows the story of Rahhal Laouina, aka “The Squirrel,” who finds his voice as an anonymous internet troll – and then has it co-opted by the country's security apparatus. While it paints a bleak picture of the possibilities of political dialogue, journalism, and self-expression, the novel itself is testament to literature's ability to chart new imaginative territory.

Show Notes

Hot Maroc is available from Syracuse University Press in Alex Elinson's translation

You can read an excerpt of the novel at Asymptote.

Aida Alami contextualizes the novel at Middle East Eye.

Adnan talks about the inspiration for the novel in an interview with the International Prize for Arabic Fiction

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