Translation
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Mahmoud Darwish
Building bridges with Arabic poetry
Anyone seeking to understand the Arab soul will find large parts of the Arab people’s collective memory in poetry, and another in the Palestinian tragedy of 1948. Mahmoud Darwish, one of the most prominent Arab poets of the modern age, united these two all his life. By Melanie Christina Mohr
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Goethe′s fascination with the "Thousand and One Nights"
Mephistopheles spoke; Scheherazade beguiled
To date, critical studies of Faust have given little consideration to its Oriental elements, in particular the fables from the "Thousand and One Nights". Goethe′s fascination with the famous storyteller Scheherazade, and his adoption of her narrative techniques and themes, has been underestimated. By Melanie Christina Mohr
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Book review: "Always Coca-Cola" by Alexandra Chreiteh
The agony and the allure
Written when the author was only 19, Alexandra Chreiteh's first novel "Always Coca-Cola", focuses in a highly entertaining way on how three young friends in Beirut are affected by Western commercialisation and contemporary beauty ideals. By Volker Kaminski
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Profile: the Syrian–German author Rafik Schami
An exile in his homeland
Rafik Schami is one of the most important authors writing in the German language. Though he first came to Germany when he was 25 years old, his Syrian homeland is never far from his thoughts. It is also the setting for many of his stories. Markus Clauer introduces the best-selling author
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Crowdfunding for translations of Arabic literature
A new way to reach a wider readership
The "A Bird is not a Stone" crowdfunding campaign may not have gotten as much press as British scientists seeking to fund a moon landing through online donations, but it certainly made a ripple among Arabic literary translators. The success of this campaign showed that crowdfunding can be an important tool in bringing Arabic literature into European languages. By Marcia Lynx Qualey
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Book review: Kamel Daoud's "The Meursault Investigation"
To kill an Arab
In his impressive novel "The Meursault Investigation", Algerian author Kamel Daoud reopens the case of one of the most famous murders in literary history. His book lends a voice to the Arab murder victim in Albert Camus' "The Stranger" and is also an angry reckoning with contemporary Algeria. By Stefan Buchen
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Women writers in Iraq
Writing to stay alive
The anthology "Through the Eyes of Inana" is a collection of poetry and short stories by 19 Iraqi women writers. It is a cross-section of what women are writing in the country right now – about their lives and how they survive in a state of war, their wishes, their dreams and their sufferings. By Rosa Gosch
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Goethe and the Orient
Why did the poet's mind wander to far-off climes?
When Goethe compiled over 200 poetic works to create his West-East Divan in 1814 and 1815, the 60-year-old had already been fascinated with the Orient his whole life. But what made the poet's mind wander to far-off climes? By Melanie Christina Mohr
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Book review: Jabbour Douaihy's "June Rain"
A "whodunit" without the "who"
A "whodunit" without the "who"? What sounds like a recipe for disappointment for the reader is, according to Marcia Lynx Qualey, an important and a delightful book and certainly not the first contemporary Lebanese novel to take this approach
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Women and the International Prize for Arabic Fiction
How many women does it take to win the IPAF?
The International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) was launched in 2007. Since then, only one woman has won the prize. Over the course of the past eight years, there has been much debate about the appearance (or not) of women on the long- and shortlists for the prize. Marcia Lynx Qualey looks back on the history of women and the IPAF
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Cairo International Book Fair 2015
Navigating the jungle
70 million books, 47 participating countries, 850 publishers ... and all for an admission price of just under ten cents. After 46 years, the Cairo International Book Fair is not only the oldest in the Arab world; with one million visitors, it is also the second largest book fair on the planet. By Amira El Ahl in Cairo
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Book review: Kamal Ruhayyim's "Diary of a Muslim Jew"
An engaging take on a complex theme
In the first half of the twentieth century, about 75,000 Jews lived in Egypt. With the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, their lives in Egypt became increasingly difficult and many emigrated to Europe. Kamal Ruhayyim believes that Jewish Egyptians were an important part of the Egyptian community and wrote a book to keep their memory alive. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the English translation of the first book in Ruhayyim's trilogy "Diary of a Muslim Jew"