Souk Waqif: Once Upon a Time Maher Atter- Photographer Mohamed Ali Abdullah- Text and Drawings Souk Waqif: Where past and present reside side-by-side A walk through the labyrinth-like passageways of Souk Waqif in Doha, Qatar tantalizes all of your senses. Careening through the passageways at each turn there is a new smell. The pungent smell of the fresh spices, the … Continue reading #QATARILITMONTH:Souk Waqif
Welcome to #QatariLitMonth
The Essence of Qatar Al Zubara Fort I am thrilled to start with you this month’s journey where you will take a glimpse of the nation of Qatar. I have been invited to be the guest editor for July to share with you stories from my beloved country. For those who don’t know much about … Continue reading Welcome to #QatariLitMonth
The Booktrekker: Kuwait
READ My book selection for Kuwait was Motorbikes and Camels, by Nejoud Al-Yagout. This is the author’s debut novel, and I thought the format was particularly interesting. The book consists of stories about thirteen different people, all of whose lives are intertwined with the lives of one or more other people in the book. While the plot … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Kuwait
The Booktrekker: Iran
READ There were so many books by Iranian authors I could have read for this blog post that I had a hard time choosing just one. I finally decided to do something completely different and read a graphic novel, written in comic book form. The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is a largely autobiographical tale of … Continue reading The Booktrekker: Iran
Speculative Fiction in Translation: The Queue
The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette Melville House May 24, 2016 224 pages There aren’t any spaceships or spirits in The Queue; no mutant alien viruses or Martian colonies, either. And yet, it is speculative fiction, because Basma Abdel Aziz has taken the reality of Egypt’s oppressive security … Continue reading Speculative Fiction in Translation: The Queue
#WorldKidLit Wednesday: Alya and the Three Cats
Welcoming a new baby into an established household is not always easy, especially when some family members don’t quite understand what is going on. This charming Moroccan import for young children ages 2 and up tells a new baby story from the perspective of three cats: Minouche, Pasha and Amir. Even if, like me, you’re … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Alya and the Three Cats
#WorldKidLit Wednesday: Trees for the Absentees
Being a teenager is hard enough as it is. Layer in the loss of a beloved grandparent, gossiping relatives, a father who is a political prisoner, and the trauma of centuries of military occupation, and perhaps the only way to make sense of everything is to resort to the fantastical. Trees for the Absentees is … Continue reading #WorldKidLit Wednesday: Trees for the Absentees
Literature of Exile: Palestine
Like the Kurds, to be a Palestinian is to grow up in exile, and with exile as a family heritage. During the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, "more than half of Palestine's native population, close to 800,000 people had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban neighborhoods emptied of their inhabitants (from … Continue reading Literature of Exile: Palestine
Literature of Exile: LGBTQ authors
The life of an exile is always complicated, but being an LGBTQ+ refugee can sometimes mean exile from your family and community as well as from your homeland. Today we look at writers from Iran, Somalia, and Pakistan who have confronted the challenge of being a gay refugee. Négar Djavadi flatly states, "I’m not an … Continue reading Literature of Exile: LGBTQ authors
Literature of Exile: Mohja Kahf
“The longest exile is exile of the heartThe only passage for return is love”― Mohja Kahf, E-mails from Scheherazad “[He] [w]ent deep into the cave where wounded men go when they walk around not talking to anyone about what's happening to them on the inside. Also known as Terre Haute.” "Liar," she says to the … Continue reading Literature of Exile: Mohja Kahf
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 