" The Batchelder Award is given to the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States." Visit the American Library Association site for details. Link here. This award honors Mildred L. Batchelder, … Continue reading Mildred L. Batchelder Award
Dear colleagues, I am honored and excited to be the GLLI guest editor for March 2018. I have been a public and school librarian for many years. My daughter is from India and now lives in New Zealand. For her 21st birthday we visited Japan, her favorite place in the world. In 2011, I spent … Continue reading International books for children
By Nuri al-Khalaf Editor of Syrian Literature Month for Global Literature in Libraries I remember – one day – that I delivered a long speech introducing and praising the Syrian culture and literature to a big crowd of students. Once I finished my speech one of my professors said to me: “Dear Nuri, you talked a … Continue reading Syrian Literature: Between Curses of the Past and Challenges of the Present
"Bambi, a Life in the Woods, originally published in Austria as Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde is a 1923 Austrian novel written by Felix Salten and published by Ullstein Verlag. The novel traces the life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of … Continue reading International Banned Book: Bambi by Felix Salten
This stunning work of art is a four-year labour of love by an artist who has clearly drawn on an enormous range of personal sources and media to populate and complicate his rich and compelling graphic novel. Freedom Hospital doesn’t claim to be comprehensive, or objective, or a documentary — but nor does it claim … Continue reading Freedom Hospital
Hasan al-Nifi's photo “A Flower from my Country” by Hasan al-Nifi Oh, flower It has lost her dew suddenly The heart’s tears flowed into its vein She scavenges from soil pain and sips Embers of catastrophe from the silt of its depths Her roots’ pulse has watered the earth’s wounds Its tenderness … Continue reading Ports of Soul
Haitham Hussein‘s latest novel, A Weed in Paradise (July 2017 Masciliana Editions), traces the footprints of the Kurds who fled their towns and villages in the north of Syria for the suburbs of the capital Damascus after the 2004 Qamishli uprising, which resulted in dozens of dead and thousands in prison: The novel, narrated by a marginalized woman, follows … Continue reading A Weed in Paradise
I confess myself bowled over in appreciation of Ghada Samman’s compelling new novel, Farewell, Damascus, recounting a young married girl’s awakening sense of having lost her life after handing it over to a man she once loved, now become her hateful enemy. This young woman freely determines each day how to live dependent on … Continue reading Farewell Damascus
The Human is the Poetry of the Universe “The word in poetry must transcend its essence, it must swell and include more” As befits a poet of his name, the span of Adonis’s work – the parabolas of his vision – carry over great distances, both of space and time, or more accurately they dismantle … Continue reading Adonis: Selected Poems
In his obituary to the celebrated Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, published a few days after his death in May 1998, Adel Darwish writes that “for Qabbani, national liberation was meaningless without sexual liberation.” Qabbani, who had spent much of his life as a diplomat and ardent Arab nationalist, also spent much of his life … Continue reading Arabian Love Poems: Full Arabic and English Texts
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 