Translation
All topics-
Tayeb Salih′s ″Season of Migration to the North″
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 Viene
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The 2017 Goethe Medals
Lebanese author Emily Nasrallah wins award: "Language is key"
Every year the Goethe-Institut confers the official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany to honour figures who have performed outstanding service for international cultural dialogue. This year′s Goethe Medals have been awarded to Lebanese author Emily Nasrallah, Indian publisher Urvashi Butalia and Russian civil rights activist Irina Shcherbakova
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Niqab-wearing novelists in Egypt
Your philosophy, my religion
In Egypt, novels written by women who wear the face-veil are gaining in popularity, despite the fact that literary critics point to their religious ideological slant and literary weaknesses. By Sameh Fayez
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Syrian author and poet Ra′id Wahsh
Who ate the sky?
What are Syrian authors writing about their country? How do they write? Who among them can find the strength to capture the horrors of war in words? Stefan Buchen has been reading a monologue written by one young writer. Literature that emerges from the rubble and ruins of war, he says, may well strike a familiar chord – it just needs to be translated
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Remembering Naguib Mahfouz
″A wave of light on an infinite ocean of darkness″
30 August 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of Naguib Mahfouz′ death. Widely regarded as the father of the Arab novel, the Egyptian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988: ″through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous″. A volume of his early non-fiction work has recently been published. Marcia Lynx Qualey gives her impressions
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Book review: Muhammad Zafzaf′s ″Elusive Fox″
One rule for them
Translated into English for the first time, Zafzaf′s novel plunges the reader into the free-living, free-loving culture of the Moroccan fringe during the hippie era – and examines the relative nature of freedom. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the book
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The poems of Ibn Arabi
Interpreting desire
The famous mystic Ibn Arabi’s 61 poems have been translated into German for the first time by Stefan Weidner. But are the poems really all that easy to understand? By Marian Brehmer
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Interview with the Saudi author Alhanoof Aldegheishem
Traces of the unknown
The Saudi Arabian dentist Alhanoof Aldegheishem wrote her first novel ″Frāībūrġ. riqqatu l-cuzla″, which roughly translates as ′Freiburg – sweet loneliness′, during a long research residency in Germany. In it, she describes how her own perspective changed and developed through her exposure to a foreign culture and the challenges she faced along the way. Interview by Hussein Gaafar
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150th anniversary of Friedrich Ruckert′s death
Forget Goethe, read Ruckert
One of Germany′s greatest poets died 150 years ago – and today, hardly anyone is familiar with him. But all those years ago, Friedrich Ruckert knew how to integrate refugees successfully. By Christoph Meyer
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Arabic literature as a cultural asset
Uncharted waters
Many Arab civil war refugees have been forced to abandon prosperous lives in a homeland destroyed by war in order to reach the safety of Europe. But traumatic experiences are not all they bring with them; there is also a wealth of literature which is still unknown to many of us. By Melanie Christina Mohr
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Book review: ″Telepathy″ by Amir Tag Elsir
An author and his doubles
Published in English translation in June 2015, ″Telepathy″ is an exercise in alienation characterised by metafictional themes and double identities. Yet does the collapse of reality live up to its promise? Nahrain al-Mousawi read the book
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The Arab world
(Not) an unlimited book market?
With the increasing efforts to revive the book market in the Arab world by publishers and cultural institutions, intermittently hindered by economic, political and social factors, the limitations of this market are yet to be explored and redefined. By Amira Elmasry