 Bothayna Al-Essa Lost in Mecca excerpt from a Novel translated by Nancy RobertsIn the meantime, Sumayya had completed seventeen rounds of her tawaf, and she’d started to feel as though her legs were about to detach from her body and go on orbiting the Kaaba forever. She was walking in circles with no beginning and no end, in search of a Mashari who had melted into the crowd. She hoped against hope that she would find him in the spot where she had lost him, loyally circling around the same point that she was. Her face drenched in tears and perspiration, she lifted her hands heavenward and cried: “Lord, I take back all the prayers I’ve ever prayed. Just bring my son back to me!” Health, wealth, the promotion she’d hoped for, for Faisal, a second child after four miscarriages. She didn’t want any of it any more. Every few seconds she would check the phone in her hand, hoping it would ring, hoping to hear his voice saying “Mama?” and telling her where he was waiting for her so that all this terror could come to an end. |
"A Bottle of Honey", a short story by Mahmoud Saeed translated by William M HutchinsFor the first time I was conscious of the pain in my leg. I had been on my feet since I left my residence. I hadn’t dared ask if I might sit down, for fear of angering the furious detective and to avoid precipitating the flow of more insults from his mouth. I stretched out my hand to accept the case file, but the officer looked alertly toward the door, which opened then.
Ahmad Al-Qarmalawi: Summer Rains, A Chapter from the novel, translated by Sophia Vasalou“You mean, all those dervishes don’t convince you? What about the engravings on the ceiling? And what about the prayer beads dangling from the lamps – you don’t like them?”He contemplated these points for a moment and then said: “I like them, but not because they have a Sufi style. In fact, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a ‘Sufi style’. Sufism is a way of being, which can be taken anywhere in the world and to all kinds of people.”“So you’re not just a virtuoso musician . . .” she broke off as the waiter came up to them
Please Do Not Bomb, A short story by Yemeni writer Lutf al-Sarary, translated by Samira KawarFor five days, he had heard Saudi aircraft bombing a camp in a neighbouring area. And two days ago, a truck carrying wheat had been bombed just a hundred and fifty metres from his house. He sensed that danger was approaching, and increasingly felt that the colour green spelt trouble, particularly after he heard on television that the aircraft were targeting homes whose owners were thought to be Houthi activists. The day after the wheat truck was bombed, he went to the market and bought three cans of white paint.
Becky Harrison reviews, The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon, Translated by Jonathan WrightLoosely based on his own experiences of revisiting Baghdad in 2003 to make a documentary, it is his first set in the United States, where he has lived on leaving Iraq in 1991 after the beginning of the Gulf War. It is easy to see much of Antoon’s life in the US in that of the main protagonist Nameer, who is a PhD candidate and literary translator also living in the States for over a decade. This blurring of fiction and reality is an important theme of the novel, and makes for an interesting negotiation between the reader and the author.
Editorial Banipal 66 Autumn/Winter 2019In this issue we publish poems by two outstanding poets, who are considered the most important voices in Arabic poetry today, the Emirati Abdel Aziz Jassim and the Palestinian Samer Abu Hawwash. Then there are excerpts from two excellent novels, Autumn of Innocence by Abbas Beydoun, so well known for his poetry, who in recent years has turned to writing novels, and the critically acclaimed Elias by the talented Egyptian author Ahmad Abdulatif, who promises the reader ’a fresh vision of history’. The main feature, TRAVELS, presents works by five innovative and established authors
Aldo Nicosia reviews Al-Digla fi ‘Arajiniha by Béchir KhraiefMekki organizes evening classes to educate his fellow workers, and then a general strike. All that happens in November 1928 – the French army intervenes heavily and many are killed or jailed in the capital. Thwarted by the failure of his nationalist dreams, Mekki is not even able to find consolation with prostitutes. Infected with a venereal disease, he decides to go back to his village.
PICNIC a poem by Samuel Shimon
The dirham had been transformed into a smooth piece of metal with neither head nor tail. My sipped his beer as I inspected the dirham. Then with his right index finger he prodded me hard on the chest, and pointed to the flattened dirham and to the ground. I understood what he was telling me: “If you stay in this country you’ll end up like this dirham.” He tossed the piece of metal high into the air and broke into loud laughter."
Margaret Obank reviews: The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda Edited by Tarek El-Ariss
To the ordinary reader, reading Arabic literature in translation today, the title The Arab Renaissance might be a little perplexing. What Renaissance? and when? The Nahda period covers roughly a hundred years, ending almost 100 years ago. The Nahda, or “awakening”, was a time of burgeoning Arab cultural and political modernity with projects that flowed through all parts of society and politics, literature, culture, press and journals, publishing, education, with an ideal of knowledge, secularism, and reform of language, based on the western Enlightenment.
Susannah Tarbush reviews The Fetishists: The Tuareg Epic by Ibrahim al-Koni Translated by William M Hutchins
In The Fetishists it is the love of two rivals for the Sultan of Timbuktu’s daughter Princess Tenere that leads to a wager. She has been unable to choose between the two suitors: “Her freedom led to her falling in love with Okha’s nobility, grandeur, and dedication to ceremony at the same time that she loved Udad’s heart and fondness for singing and the mountains.”An intermediary conveys the wager from Okha to Udad: “If you can climb up Idinen and stand on its top vertical slab, he will relinquish the princess.” Udad accepts the bet. His name means Barbary ram, and he is known for his climbing skills.
Shadi Rohana reviews Palestine +100 edited by Basma Ghalayini
Some of the stories that include Israelis as their protagonists (with the exception of Dabbagh’s “Sleep it Off, Dr Schott”), for example, rather than attempting to engage with the nuances of the Israeli state from within wind up with trivializing Israeli society, and consequently trivializing Palestinians and the nature of the conflict
"Wandering the Cities While Dead" a short story by Sargon Boulus
She said: “No! He is a lost boy, a boy without parents – stolen, I suspect. We are gypsies, as you know, thieves, and travellers in all remote parts of the earth. We go after the spring clouds and we run away from the rain and the heat. We can only live between seasons. Then my husband became frail and absorbed the customs and practices of the cities. I am talking to you about the man who is dying here behind me now.”
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