Author: Valentina Viene

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Palestinian artist and poet Farid Bitar and "Blade of Grass" editor Naomi Foyle (photo: Naomi Foyle)

Interview with Palestinian poet and artist Farid Bitar

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″I must either be the voice of sanity or justice″

Palestinian artist and poet Farid Bitar's work was recently included in Smokestack Books' "A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry", edited by Naomi Foyle. One of the 60 people allowed to enter the Gaza strip for a few hours during the Gaza Freedom March in 2009, Bitar talks to Valentina Viene about his activism and his artMore

Mahmoud Darwish: Building bridges with Arabic poetry Qalandiya International: Palestine's contemporary arts festivalRecreating Palestine in literature: A nation crafted from words
Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, 1929-2009 (source: thefamouspeople.com)

Tayeb Salih′s ″Season of Migration to the North″

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A literary hall of mirrors

Described as the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century by the Arab Literary Academy, Tayeb Salih's ″Season of Migration to the North″ was first published in 1966. For this year′s Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize Lecture, Professor Robert Irwin reflected on Salih′s unique mode of engaging with Western culture and the counternarrative he provides to post-colonial discourse. By Valentina VieneMore

Obituary: Tayeb Salih: Season of Literary Migration to the SouthRemembering Naguib Mahfouz: ″A wave of light on an infinite ocean of darkness″ Abdulrazak Gurnah – "Pilgrim's Way": As foreign as a drop of oil in water
Yemeni author Habib Abdulrab Sarori (photo: private)

Interview with the Yemeni author Habib Abdulrab Sarori

The pendulum of conviction

″Suslov′s Daughter″ is the inward and outward journey of a Yemeni revolutionary in search of answers; a man struggling to find his equilibrium, while the Yemeni revolution turns from a dream into a nightmare. Habib Abdulrab Sarori talks to Valentina VieneMore

Interview with the Yemeni author Ali al-Muqri: ″Sex is the origin of all life″Background Günther Orth: Young Yemeni literature is looking for its placeInterview with the Yemeni director Sara Ishaq: "Yemen is like a garden that was full of weeds"
Historical image showing inhabitants of the Benghazi slave enclosure

Libyan author Najwa Binshatwan on "The Slave Pens"

Confronting a dark chapter

Najwa Binshatwan′s novel ″The Slave Pens″ was the only one of six novels shortlisted for this year′s International Prize for Arab Fiction to be written by a woman. At the Abu Dhabi award ceremony, she talked to Valentina Viene about her novel and the importance of origins and identityMore

Book review: Hisham Matar′s ″The Return″: A painful voidLibyan writers in exile: Active in support of the uprising"Translating Libya": Non-political stories of love and hardship

In brief

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Most Recent Photo Essay

Forced removals: it's estimated that 8,000 refugees live in Bihac. The camps are overcrowded and every day there is talk of burglaries. There was a stabbing in front of the kindergarten. Next to Camp Bira, there were about 500 people not registered with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). In mid-June police picked them up and drove them to a site called Vucjak

The inhumanity of Bosniaʹs Vucjak refugee camp

Within eyeshot of the Bosnian-Croatian border, thousands of refugees are camping in squalor on a former garbage site. Their supplies are scarce. Photographer Dirk Planert was among them