Egyptian author Nadia Wassef talks about opening the first independent bookstore in her home country; and her latest book in which she celebrates books and booksellers. By Manasi GopalakrishnanMore

As the photo of Fairouz talking to French President Emmanuel Macron spread around the world, many asked if Arabs today had any contemporary stars of Fairouz's standing. In this essay for Qantara.de, Khaled Al-Khamissi answers this question and asks whether there is a place for up-and-coming stars in a world that is so hostile to creativity and originalityMore

In 2019, the long-running Penguin Classics series released its first novel translated from Arabic: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s "Return of the Spirit", conveyed into English by William Hutchins. Al-Hakim wrote his popular novel in Paris in 1927 and published it in Cairo six years later, in 1933. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the bookMore

Lebanese novelist and critic Elias Khoury pays tribute to Alaa Al Aswanyʹs new novel as the only comprehensive literary chronicle of the January 2011 Egyptian revolution, charting the tragic fate of those who were killed, imprisoned and tortured against a background of the diabolical alliance between the Egyptian army and the Muslim BrotherhoodMore

In Radwa Ashour's "The Journey", newly translated by Michelle Hartman, the Egyptian novelist chronicles the four years she spent doing a PhD in African-American Literature at the University of Massachusetts in the 1970s. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the bookMore

The Egyptian military regime regularly targets authors, accusing them of "violating public morals". The trial of Egyptian novelist and journalist Ahmed Naji ranks as one of the most prominent cases in recent years. Interview conducted by Moritz B. and Luisa M.More

Following his suicide in 1969, the private diaries of Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali, known for his one best-selling novel, ″Beer in the Snooker Club″, were preserved. Surviving only as copies, they were made available through Cornell University in 2014. May Hawas has now deciphered Ghali′s sometimes drunken scrawl and compiled his journals into two eminently readable volumes. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the firstMore